
\M%m 



mSmmk 



mti 




EPWORTH RECTORY AS IT IS AT PRESENT. 
[From a Photograph ] 



«■* 



THK 



Story of a Wonderful Off: 



OR, 



PEN PICTURES 



OF THE MOST INTERESTING INCIDENTS TN THE LIFE OF 
THE CELEBRATED 



JOHN WESLEY. 



Adapted to the pastes and grants of ¥oung Jfeople. 



DANIEL WISE, D. I). 




CINCINNATI: j 

HITCHCOCK AND WALDEN. 

NEW YORK: 
NELSON AND PHILLIPS. 



or congees* 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, 
BY HITCHCOCK & WALDEN, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



■ - ; , 



cJ 




REFATORY 1VOTE. 



!< 




1 HIS volume is offered to the young 
people of America, not as a complete 
1 biography of John Wesley, but as an 
outline of the most marked incidents in his 
career, and a sort of crayon portraiture of his 
A great character. It contains sufficient, how- 
ever, to give them a tolerably full conception 
both of the man and his deeds — to excite 
their admiration of the former and 'their emu- 
lation of the latter. 
The writer makes no pretense of having any 
new or private sources of information. His mate- 
rials were derived from such authors as Moore, 



i 



2 PREFATORY NOTE. 

Southey, Watson, Wesley's Journals, Kirk, Tyer- 
man, etc. As there are few references to author- 
ities in the body of the work, I wish to say here 
that I have been specially indebted to that most 
elaborate work on Wesley hitherto published, 
"The Life and Times of John Wesley," by the 
Rev. L. Tyerman, for facts, and for brief extracts 
which, though not credited, are contained in quo- 
tation marks ; as are extracts from Wesley's Jour- 
nal, and other authors, wherever made. 

This work is not a mere compilation. While 
its facts have all been previously published, its 
arrangement, style, grouping of incidents, and in- 
terpretations of fact, are the author's own. Should 
its perusal excite a desire for a more complete 
acquaintance with its illustrious subject, the young 
reader is referred to the works named above, and 
also to that most able and delightful work, "The 
History of the Religious Movement of the Nine- 
teenth Century, called Methodism," by Abel Ste- 
vens, LL. D.; a charming book, which every young 
student of Church history may profitably study. 

I have only to add, that if these pages should 



PREFATORY NOTE. 3 

inspire any young heart with a measure of that 
spiritual heroism, that fidelity to God, that broad 
and gentle charity for mankind, and that rich ex- 
perience of the Divine life, which gave grandeur 
and power to the character of Wesley, my highest 
aim in writing them will be attained. 

DANIEL WISE. 

Englewood, New Jersey, 1873. 



%& 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction — by Bishop Haven, 



Page 13 



CHAPTER I. 

FIRST FIVE YEARS OF WESLEY'S LIFE. 

A World-renowned Village — Epworth Parsonage one hun- 
dred and seventy years ago — A Stir in the Parsonage — Birth 
of Wesley— The Family Group— Sketch of the Babe's Father— 
His College Life — Reproving a Military Officer — Sketch of 
Wesley's Mother — Little Jacky's First Lessons — Beautiful 
Habits — Happy Life at the Parsonage — The Rector and his 
Miserly Host — The Conceited Clerk rebuked, . . 23 



CHAPTER II. 

IN THE HOME SCHOOL AT EPWORTH. 

Wesley's First Day in the Family School — How he 
learned to read — His Mother's Patience — Anecdote of his 
Brother Samuel — Master John's Narrow Escape from a 
Cruel Death — Results of the Fire — Poverty of the Good 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

Rector — The Children scattered — At the Home School again — 
Master John's Peculiarities — Wesley's First Communion— His 
Patience in Sickness, Page 43 

CHAPTER III. 

WESLEY AS A PUBLIC-SCHOOL BOY. 

Leaving Home — The Charter-house School for Boys — 
Among Strange Boys — Diligence in Study — Rough Treat- 
ment — Brave Endurance of School Trials — His Morning 
Walk — Its Effect on his Health — Obtains the Head-master's 
Favor — The Charter-house Festival — School-song Chorus — 
Wesley in the Upper Form — The Perplexed Usher — Grad- 
uates with Honor — Bad Effects of his School-life on his 
Piety, 59 

CHAPTER IV. 

WESLEY'S STUDENT-LIFE AT OXFORD. 

Off to Oxford — Probable Thoughts on entering the 
City — No Details of his Student-life Extant — A good Stu- 
dent — His Reputation when Twenty-one — Character of Oxford 
Students — A Sad Confession — Wesley never Immoral — 
The Porter of Christ Church — Impression made by him on 
"Young Wesley" — Seeking a Profession — The Turning 
Point — A Grand Struggle begun, . . . .71 

CHAPTER V. 

WESLEY AS FELLOW OF LINCOLN. 

Wesley's Ordination — An Uncommon Honor — The Old 
Rector's Joy — Wesley becomes his Father's Curate — Re- 



CONTENTS. 7 

called to Oxford — His Personal Appearance when twenty-six 
years old — How he impressed Observers — Charles Wesley 
and his Pious Companions — Wesley joins them — Origin of 
the Term Methodist — Birth of Wesley's Master-passion — His 
devotion - to Study and to Christian Work — Persecution — 
Nicknames — Grand Words — Wesley's Noble Companions 
in Persecution — Epworth or the World for a Parish — Ep- 
worth declined — Death of the Good Rector of Epworth — 
The Widow consoled — A Merciless Creditor — A Deed of 
Charity, Page S3 



CHAPTER VI. 

FROM OXFORD TO SAVANNAH. 

A Call to Georgia — Heroic Words of Wesley's Mother — 
Spiritual Heroism — Singular Blindness — On the Broad At- 
lantic — Self-denial on Ship-board — Affronted by Fellow-pas- 
sengers — Timely and Effectual Rebuke — Bearding a Military 
Lion — Perils on the Deep — A Beautiful Moral Spectacle — 
At Savannah — His Meeting with a Moravian Elder — Seed 
Questions, 104 



CHAPTER VII. 

MISSIONARY LIFE IN GEORGIA. 

Wesley's Constancy to his Plan of Life — His Work — 
Hardships — Opposition — A Virago — His High Church Prac- 
tices — Voice of the Storm — Training Quarrelsome Children — 
His Courtship — Disappointment — Returns to England, 115 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE VICTORY OF FAITH. 

Wesley's Successor in Georgia — Sketch of Whitefield — 
His Testimony to Wesley's Usefulness in Savannah — Wes- 
ley among his Old Friends — Meets Peter Bohler — Is con- 
vinced of Unbelief — Preaches Faith — Discovers his Privi- 
lege — Effects of his Preaching — Strengthened for his Great 
Work — Prepared for Battle, .... Page 126 

CHAPTER IX. 

FIRST FRUITS OF HIS NEW-BORN FAITH. 

Effect of his Faith on the Quality of Wesley's Labors — 
Great Awakenings — Driven from the Churches — Religious 
Societies — Whitefield returns — How he began Field-preach- 
ing — An Unwonted Spectacle — Wesley in London — A Woman 
comforted after three years of Sorrow — An Angry Woman 
converted — Wesley called to Bristol — Sortilege. — Consult- 
ing the Oracles of God — A Venial Fault — Wesley shocked at 
Whitefield's Open-air Preaching — Is convinced that it is 
Right — Crosses the Rubicon — Signs and Wonders — The 
Hostile Quaker — The Smitten Weaver — Origin of the Signs 
and Wonders — Persecution — The Dandy King of Bath — 
Wesley's Mother greatly blessed, . . . . 137 

CHAPTER X. 

SEVERAL FIRST THINGS. 

Wesley's First Purposes overruled — How it came 
about — The Chapel at Bristol — A Ruinous Old Building in 



CONTENTS. 9 

London — What two Unknown Gentleman did — The Foundry 
purchased — Birth of the First Methodist Society — Charles 
Wesley silences an Archbishop — Lay Preaching — John Cen- 
nick the Quaker's Son — Thomas Maxfield — The Hand of 
God leading Wesley — A Man of One Book — Opposition — 
How Whitefield became a Calvinist — His Demand of Wes- 
ley — Wesley's Firmness — Whitefield attacks him — Wesley's 
Forbearance — The Victory of Meekness, . Page 159 

CHAPTER XL 

OFF TO THE NORTH AND WEST. 

A Call to Yorkshire — A Mason and a Countess unit- 
ing in the Call — On Birstal Hill and Dewsbury Moor — A 
Heroic Convert — Preaching on his Father's Grave — Glorious 
Scenes — At his Mother's Death-bed — A Memorable Day at 
the Foundry — First Wesley an Conference — Ten Earnest 
Men — Divine Leadings — A Cry from Cornwall — Character 
of the Cornish People — The Affrighted Villagers — A Spirit- 
ual Foray — Hard Fare — A Savage Mob at Falmouth — Increas- 
ing Success, 175 

CHAPTER XII. 

IN THE EMERALD ISLE AND ON SCOTIA'S HILLS. 

A Voice from Ireland — Wesley's Pioneer in Dublin — 
Charles Wesley in Ireland — Origin of the Term "Swad- 
dlers" — Methodism persecuted in Cork — The Ballad-monger 
squelched by a Judge — Wesley awes a Cork Mob — Success of 
Methodism in Ireland — Wesley's Prediction — Wesley in Scot- 
land — He is treated with Great Respect — Noble Scotch Meth- 
odists — Poor Old Janet's Reason for quitting the Kirk, 197 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

GRACE MURRAY AND MRS. VAZEILLE. 

Wesley's Tract against Marriage — Is convinced of its 
Error — Charles Wesley's Happy Marrriage — Its final Effects 
on his Labors — Grace Murray — Her Origin and First Mar- 
riage — Her Heroic Firmness — Becomes a Widow — Devotes 
herself to Church Work — Wesley Proposes Marriage — She 
accepts him — Her Prior Engagement with John Bennet— Her 
Coquetry — Charles Wesley's Interference— She marries Ben- 
net — Touching Scene — The Widow Vazeille — Her Seem- 
ing Character — Charles Wesley's Opinion of her Worth — 
Wesley lamed by a Fall on the Ice — Goes to the Widow's 
Mansion — Seven Days' Work and Courtship — Marriage — 
Mrs. Wesley's Unhappy Temper — Her Sad Misconduct — 
Her Furious Passion — Wesley's Patience and Meekness — 
Flis Loving Spirit illustrated — His Wife leaves him — Her 
Death, Page 209 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Wesley's lay and clerical helpers. 

The Rapid Spread of Methodism a Great Marvel — 
Character of Wesley's Lay Helpers — Thomas Maxfield — 
John Nelson's Wit, Courage, and Manhood — John Downes — 
His Remarkable Genius — He dies in the Pulpit — The Secret 
of the Success of Wesley's Helpers — Wesley greatly beloved 
by his Helpers — Wesley's Clerical Helpers — William Grim- 
shaw — His Conversion, Wonderful Labors, Eccentricities, 
Success, and Triumphant Death — The Vicar of Madeley — 
His Valuable Services to Young Methodism — His Rare 



CONTENTS. 1 1 

Piety — Scene at Treveeka College — Thrilling Scene in a 
Conference — His Happy Death — Thomas Coke — His Con- 
version — Visits Wesley — Results of that Visit — Death of 
Whitefield — Fruits of his American Labors not organized — 
Relation of Wesley's Organizing Power to American Meth- 
odism — Sketch of its Rise — Its First Bishops — Their Right to 
be called Bishops, Page 233 



CHAPTER XV. 

WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY, AND LOVE OF CHILDREN. 

Wesley a Noted Philanthropist — What he did for the 
Poor at Bristol — Distributes Pease Pottage during the Great 
Frost in London — His Habitual Care for the Poor — Helps an 
Irish Peasant — Quiets a Termagant by aiding a Play-actor — 
Earns Ten Guineas and gives them to Poor Debtors — Wes- 
ley a Supporter of Public Reforms — Wesley's Love of Chil- 
dren — Robert Southey's Recollection — Wesley's Schools for 
Children — His Meetings with the Children — The Children's 
Love for him— Beautiful Spectacles — How he dealt with some 
Quarrelsome Children — Wesley and the Sunday-school, 260 

CHAPTER XVI. | 

WESLEY'S COURAGE AND ACTIVITY. 

Wesley a Brave Man — Crossing the Inundated Sands 
at St. Ives — Battling with a Mob at Wednesbury — His Won- 
derful Activity— His Natural Love of Retirement — His Fre- 
quent Sighs for Retirement — The Spur of Duty — Sustained 
by the Love of Christ — His Economy of Time — Incident at 
York — His Power to throw off Care, . . . 283 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

OLD AGE, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 

Vigor of Wesley's Physical Constitution — His Health 
when sixty years old — His Strength when four-score — Feels 
the Finger of Decay when eighty-five — His Work when 
eighty-six — The Causes of Wesley's Vigor in Old Age — His 
Early Tendency to Consumption — God the Grand Cause 
of his Vigor — Frequent Escapes from Violent Death — Fall 
down-stairs — Storm on the Trent — A Runaway Scene — Dan- 
gers during his Winter Journeys — His Charmed Life — 
Charles Wesley's Death — Wesley's Grief— Wesley's Last 
Sermon — Triumphant Conflict with Death — His Burial — 
His Character — Tardy Justice to his Memory in England — 
His Real Monument, Page 298 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

Epworth Rectory as it is at Present. — Frontispiece. 

Charter-house Green, 61 

Scholars' Apartments in the Charter-house, . 68 
Whitefield Preaching in the Fields, . . 141 
Charles Wesley and the Archbishop, . . 165 
John Wesley in Mature Life, . . , 252 




INTRODUCTION. 



BY BISHOP HAVEN. 




t T is. with especial pleasure that we 
accept the invitation to write a pref- 
atory note to this new venture 
in our Church literature ; both because 
the author has crowned a life of remark- 
able success in this department with this 
beginning of what, we trust, will be a long 
series of similiar publications, and also 
because he has thus initiated successfully 
a new departure in our Sunday-school liter- 
ature, — not that others have not previously 
essayed this, but it has been given to him to 
here make the essay triumphant. Our Church 
. ' 13 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

heroes and history are at last to be adapted to 
our Church readers. We have sparkling biogra- 
phies and histories, which the world, no less than 
the Church, admires. We have had a thorough 
treatment, by both friend and foe, of our founder 
under God, and of his associates and followers. 
But these works have been "caviare, to the multi- 
tude." They have reached not the many, but the 
few. Of the last, and not least, of these biogra- 
phies, there have been sold only two thousand 
copies. What are these among so many millions 
of our own people, and the many more that are 
interested in the beginnings and growings of this 
Church of Christ? It was time that "the story 
of his life, from year to year," should be told by 
one competent to bring it before the youthful, 
which is the reading, multitude. It was time that 
the masses of the Church should know the story 
of the Church. 

This has here been happily accomplished. 
What has been done by another writer for youth 
in the biographies of famous men of European 
and American history, has here been done for the 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

chiefest of Europeans since the Christian era, 
whose influence and power in this land also sur- 
passes any American ; for Washington is less 
than Wesley, even in the country which calls 
him Father. 

Dean Stanley has lately declared, in his lecture 
on his Life at Oxford, that he towers immensely 
over all his followers. He is equally pre-eminent 
over all his critics, however patronizingly they 
approach him ; and over all his fellow-collegiates, 
however haughtily they have hitherto disdained 
him. Isaac Taylor, Southey, Stanley, every non- 
Methodistic student of his life, sinks into pigmyism 
beside his majestic greatness; and his university 
will yet be compelled to declare that the stone 
they have so long rejected is the chief stone of 
their corner. They may carve marble statues and 
paint memorial windows to their many scholars 
and preachers of renown ; but no one of them — 
not even the saintly trio who,, in her own chief 
square, gave their* bodies to be burned ; nor the 
greatest of those reformers, he who put the Bible 
into English, and into the English nation — can 



1 6 INTRODUCTION. 

surpass, or equal, in fame and influence this son 
of Christ Church, Lincoln, and Exeter. Wyclif 
and Wesley, five hundred years apart, are the 
chief glory of Oxford; and the latter was not a 
whit behind the former — nay, far before him — in 
the formal results of his life. He will yet be the 
most honored of her sons at home, as he has long 
been in the world at large. 

This vivacious sketch of his character and 
life will, we trust, be followed by not a few like 
portraits of his associates. For, despite Mr. Stan- 
ley's depreciation of these men, it will be found 
they were worthy marshals of this more than 
Napoleon. When his studies shall have led him 
farther into this field, he will treat with equal can- 
dor and admiration the labors of that other great 
Oxfordite, Whitefield, the yet unrivaled pulpit 
orator of all time ; or that first and still foremost 
of missionaries, Coke, of whom Punshon well says, 
he had " the great sea for his sepulcher j" or that rec- 
ognized chief Biblical scholar of his age, Clarke ; or 
that wittiest, godliest, shrewdest, and best-tempered 
of disputants, Fletcher; or that broad- sweeping, 



INTRODUCTION. 1J 

deep-searching theologian, Watson; or the most 
cultured, ringing, and rapturous of all hymnists 
who has ever arisen in the history of the Church 
to inspire her troops, and to lead them forward, 

" At the head of the march to the last new Jerusalem," 
that other Christ Church Oxfordite, Charles Wes- 
ley. He will see that these, and others less 
known to fame, were worthy to work together 
with John Wesley, in building up the greatest 
ecclesiastical structure of modern ages. 

If he should then pursue his studies on the 
other side of the Atlantic, he might find in Asbury 
a hero worthy of his best pen — a fit Achates for 
that pious ^Eneas who organized victory for Christ 
over all this continent ; who knew how to modify 
his English birth and Wesleyan tactics to meet 
the characteristics of the American people : the . 
only great foreigner in this land that has ever 
learned that most difficult lesson, how to lose his 
original, in his adopted, nationality. Hamilton 
never quite lost the foreigner in the native, as his 
ideas of government and loss of popularity clearly 
showed. Nor has one since appeared, among all 



1 8 INTRODUCTION. 

our adopted countrymen, who has found the secret 
of success in this perfect acclimation. There 
was no need of prohibiting in the^Constitution the 
accession of such persons to the headship of the 
nation. They prevent their own success. And 
if they can, by any conformity, earn the head- 
ship, they should be allowed to possess it. 

Asbury is our only foreign-born resident that 
is universally revered as if this were his father- 
land. He early caught the instinct of the true 
American ; and whether before, in, or after the 
War of Independence; whether among the polit- 
ical or ecclesiastical rulers, — he was, like Paul 
(hardly his superior apostle), himself a Gentile 
among Gentiles. 

Others of those and of later times will also 
merit portraiture from critical and filial pencils. 
Garrettson, the gentleman; Lee, the wit and ora- 
tor; Hedding, the calm-brained and strong- 
brained ; Fisk, the Fletcher of American Meth- 
odism ; Soule, the Michael of the pulpit, tallest of 
our archangels in the proclamation of the Gospel ; 
Orange Scott, the stalwart arouser of a slumber- 



INTRODUCTION. ig 

ing Church, whose eloquence was only equaled by 
his heroism, and each was excelled by his devo- 
tion to the slave : who had put his own Church 
and conferences in all New England, as a body, 
into the front rank of Abolitionists, before any 
other Church organization, and almost before any 
other individual minister, had attained that grace, — 
surely, there is a. field here for the facile pen that 
has drawn this spirited sketch of the leader of this 
mighty militant host of the Lord Jesus. 

Not the least benefit, we trust, that will accrue 
from this publication, will be the beginning of a 
new style of Sunday-school literature. It is time 
that the fictitious trash that has so long burdened 
our book-shelves, and even heavily burdened our 
children's brains and hearts, should give way for 
more truthful writings. All books for children 
should lead them up to higher works in their sev- 
eral departments. As primary readers, geogra- 
phies, and arithmetics should be so arranged as to 
prepare and allure the childish student to higher 
literature and higher sciences, so should Sunday- 
school books be so composed as to train and 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

attract the reader to higher works in their sev- 
eral spheres. What are the higher works to which 
an infantile fiction will educate? Not true histo- 
ries, nor biographies; not scientific studies, nor 
theological ; but only to maturer fictions, to novels 
and romances, and all such mind and soul debil- 
itations. They should have science so popu- 
larized and Christianized, that they should be led 
to the broader treatments of nature ; they should 
have lives of good men so told, that they will crave 
larger researches into the same ; they should 
have theology so taught, that the Catechism will 
be a delight, and the truths of the Gospel will be 
as confectionery, sweet unto their taste. Then will 
they eagerly pursue the subtilest and loftiest paths 
of divinest lore. 

This volume will contribute to that reforma- 
tion. May it be followed by many such, from 
many pens in every line of enticing truth, so that 
our coming youth may grow up with desires for 
deeper studies in all the words and ways of the 
Lord ; so that, too, those who seek to feed them 
with literary food may make truth, and not fiction, 



INTRODUCTION. 2T 

the way, as well as the end, of their compositions ! 
They will themselves be greatly blessed and 
braced by such a purpose. They will have to 
study before they write, know something before 
they pretend to say something, fill their own minds 
before they seek to fill the minds of children. 
They will not proceed, with scraps of paper and a 
feverish fancy, to create feeble children of an 
empty brain, as is too often the case to-day, but 
will have to prepare, by amplest study, for the task 
that is set them. Thus will they show, as this 
book does, a thorough acquaintance with all the 
literature pertaining t:o the topic they treat. 

Then will our youth be fed with food conven- 
ient for them, and grow up in a clear knowledge 
of the fathers and mothers of the Church-; not 
alone of its latest born, but of all its elder kin- 
dred — those of the Reformation, of the mediaeval 
age, and of the primitive times. They will seek 
further knowledge in all departments of true re- 
search, and grow in wisdom, as in stature, in favor 
with God and man. 



THE 



STORY OF A WONDERFUL LIFE. 



Cr^tef I. 



FIRST FIVE YEARS OF WESLEY'S LIFE. 



|SF^ICTURE in your mind, my young reader, 
j_WH.| a straggling little village, situated pleas- 
^gfift antly enough on the "slope of a gentle 
1 y hill." The houses on its half-dozen irreg- 
ular streets are modest structures, built mostly of 
brick, and covered with red tiles. Yonder, on the 
north, see an ancient stone church, with its old 
gray tower half hidden among some grand old elm 
and sycamore trees. There is nothing striking 



24 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

about it ; but we will enter its door-way, and mount 
to the top of the tower. Looking down, we per- 
ceive that this village stands in the center of a 
little islet, formed by three rivers — the Don, the 
Idle, and the Torn — and an ancient ditch, which 
connects one of these streams, the Idle, with the 
River Trent. Lifting our eyes toward the north 
and west, we see low, dull hills, filling the horizon. 
Turning to the south and east, we behold in the 
distance countless acres of salt-meadows stretch- 
ing far away toward the shores of the German 
Ocean. Nowhere can we pronounce the prospect 
either picturesque or beautiful. 

Let us descend from the tower into the streets, 
and take a peep at the inhabitants. We find about 
two thousand people living here. We inquire 
after their occupation, and are told that they are 
worthy cultivators of the rich meadows around 
the village; thrifty, well-to-do, plain people gen- 
erally, with nothing to distinguish them from the 
villagers in the towns about them. 

" Surely," you exclaim, " there is nothing re- 
markable or note-worthy about this place 1" No, 



FIRST FIVE YEARS. 2$ 

nothing whatever, so far as respects its beauty, 
wealth, buildings, inhabitants, or even its history, 
except in just one thing. But that one thing has 
made the name of this obscure place a household 
word in almost every quarter of the globe. Yes : 
this mean village of Epworth is "world-re- 
nowned," solely because it was the birthplace of 
a man. The name of that man was John Wesley. 

There is a little village hidden among the 
hills of Galilee, so insignificant that its name is 
not once found in the Old Testament ; yet its 
fame has gone abroad among all nations, solely 
because a greater than John Wesley, even John 
Wesley's and our Savior, spent most of his youth- 
ful days within its walls. The fact that the feet 
of Jesus trod its streets has made it illustrious. In 
like manner, the glory of Epworth is derived from 
its having been the early home of the celebrated 
founder of Methodism. 

It is not surprising that the presence of Jesus 
at Nazarefh, during so great a portion of his life, 
has made its name dear to millions of hearts ; for 
to him belonged both the greatness of a heroic man 



WONDERFUL LIFE. 



and the grandeur of a God. He could not touch 
any thing, not a child even, without making it 
sacred. But it is a rare thing for a mere man to 
give celebrity to his birthplace. Something more 
than greatness is required to accomplish this. The 
world has seen many great men whose early homes 
and haunts have no place in people's hearts; but 
when goodness and greatness are united in a 
man's character, the places in which he drew his 
breath and learned the lessons by which he grew 
into his high estate, become dear to the affections 
of his admirers and followers. Now, inasmuch as 
John Wesley's association with Epworth and its 
parsonage has given them a world-wide celebrity, 
and sanctity even, there must have been some- 
thing greatly good in his life, his actions must 
have been very extraordinary, and you can scarcely 
be without a strong curiosity to know what he was 
and what he did — what made him so illustrious 
and so well-beloved. If you will read this volume 
through, you will learn the interesting secret. 

Now, let us go back to Epworth, and see what 
was going on there one hundred and seventy years 



FIRST FIVE YEARS. 27 

ago. It was not quite so large a place then, as 
we saw it to be just now. The land around it had 
been just drained, and raised from a condition 
little better than a swamp, and the people were 
generally rude and poor; many of them, indeed, 
little better than "Christian savages." But our 
business is at the rectory, or parsonage. We shall 
find it on the High or principal street, standing in 
a three-acre lot, some hundred feet back from the 
sidewalk. It is three stories in height, and is 
built with rough timbers, with plaster between 
them. Its roof is thatched with straw. Its win- 
dows are small casements, filled with little dia- 
mond squares of glass, set in lead. If not the 
best house, it is one of the best, in the village. 

Supposing that we are in Epworth on the 17th 
of June, 1703, we shall find quite a stir in the rec- 
tory. There have been vague whisperings among 
five of the six children in the household. Several 
rosy-cheeked matrons have been seen going in, 
wearing mysterious faces; the doctor has been 
there, and has gone again with a self-satisfied air. 
The fact is, a baby has been born in the rectory 



28 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

to-day ; and we are there just in time to go, in 
fancy at least, with the good rector and his chil- 
dren, into Mrs. Wesley's chamber, to see the new- 
born babe. 

The shades are down; but, dim as the light is, 
we can make out to see the little red-faced bit of 
humanity, wrapped in homespun flannel, lying on 
the nurse's lap, utterly unaware of the interest he 
excites, or of the work he has come into the world 
to do. Around him are his brother and five sis- 
ters. Of these, the sprightly Samuel is thirteen 
years old ; the beautiful Emilia is twelve ; the 
frolicsome Susannah, eight; the deformed but 
much petted Mary, seven ; the studious Meheta- 
bel, six ; and baby Anne, in a sister's arms it may 
be, scarcely old enough to comprehend what her 
sisters mean when they playfully allege, as we 
may imagine they do, that "baby John has put 
her nose out of joint." 

Behind this group, and overlooking them all, is 
the somewhat spare but well-knit form of Samuel 
Wesley, the baby's father. A student's cap covers 
his noble head. His face is smooth, and guiltless 



FIRST FIVE YEARS. 29 

^like of beard and whiskers. His clear, keen 
eyes look lovingly on the child. He has a Roman 
nose, lips which suggest that he is a man who can 
stick to his purpose, a beautifully rounded chin, 
and a clear complexion. His face proclaims him 
no common man. His history shows him to have 
been one of the most marked men of his age. 

The slender, pale-faced mother smiles feebly 
from her bed upon the family group. She looks 
like a lady given to much thought. Whether we 
should pronounce her beautiful or not, if we saw 
her up and in health, it is impossible to say; for 
her biographers are not agreed on this point. Of 
this only we are sure : her character was as noble 
as her descent — she had high-born blood in her 
veins — and she was one of the best and wisest 
of mothers. 

To this new-born babe his mother gave the 
name of John Benjamin, to distinguish him from 
an elder child named John, who had died before 
this one was born. But his second name, Benja- 
min, was never used. The world knows him only 
as John Wesley. 



30 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

As Master John will do little else for some 
time to come than to eat, drink, sleep, grow, and 
cry softly — for his mother never, allowed him or 
any of her children to cry loudly, after they were 
a year old ; though how she prevented it, no living 
soul can tell — we will leave him awhile with his 
nurse, and find out who and what sort of persons 
his father and mother were. Knowing, as you do, 
that this babe became a very celebrated man, and 
that he had a younger brother, Charles, who was 
also greatly distinguished, you can scarcely be with- 
out a desire to know something about their parents. 

John Wesley's father was Samuel Wesley. He 
came from a good stock. His father and grand- 
father were heroic ministers, who suffered much 
for conscience' sake in the troublous times during 
which they lived. His father died young, leaving 
a widow and two sons, Matthew and Samuel, 
very poor. 

Samuel was fifteen years old when left father- 
less. Generous friends kept him at various schools 
in Dorchester and London, until he was twenty- 
one. They wished and expected him to become 



FIRST FIVE YEARS. 3 I 

a Dissenting minister, as his father had been. All 
his studies and expectations were in that direction. 
His friends were all hostile to the Church of Eng- 
land. He thought and felt as they did, until, be- 
ing desired to use his pen against the ministers of 
that Church, he carefully studied its character and 
claims. These studies changed his views, and he 
resolved to enter a college at Oxford, and become 
an Episcopal minister. 

This was a serious step for the penniless young 
man to take. Such was the bitterness of feeling 
then prevalent between the adherents of the 
Church and Dissenters, that Samuel knew he 
would be utterly forsaken by all his old friends. 
He knew no one who would stand by him in mak- 
ing the change. His whole fortune consisted of a 
sum not exceeding ten dollars, and of a quantity 
of clothing and a few books so trifling that he 
could pack them all in a single knapsack ! Yet 
he bravely took the important step, because he felt 
it his duty to do so. The same heroic fidelity to 
conscience which made his grandfather and father 
endure persecution from the friends of the Epis- 



32 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

copal Church, led him to cast his lot within her 
pale. All honor to the noble youth, as well as to 
his equally noble ancestors ! 

Behold this young man, then, quitting London 
on foot, burdened with the knapsack containing 
his little stock of earthly goods ! Patiently, hope- 
fully, he plods his weary way, fifty-five miles, to 
Oxford. There he gains admission as servitor; 
that is, he became servant to some wealthy stu- 
dent for the sake of his daily bread. He was 
entered among the lowest class of students — the 
poor scholars with respect to condition. Still he 
held up his head. His self-respect sustained him ; 
for he knew that such poverty as his was honor- 
able. He worked hard at his studies. He helped 
such students as had more gold than brains \ he 
also wrote for the booksellers, and thus earned 
money with which to purchase clothing and other 
necessaries. Thus, year by year, he pushed his 
way, "paddling his own canoe," through five years, 
until he honorably won his degree of B. A., or 
Bachelor of Arts, and graduated, with fifty dollars 
in his pocket. 



FIRST FIVE YEARS. 33 

With the example of Samuel Wesley before his 
eyes, is there any intelligent youth in America 
who will shrink from seeking a collegiate educa- 
tion solely because he is poor? Away with such 
shrinking ! It is cowardice. The poorest boy in 
this land of many opportunities can work his way 
to and through college, if he resolutely wills to 
do so. 

This same bravery of spirit was illustrated in a 
different way when Samuel Wesley was in a Lon- 
don coffee-house, one day, taking refreshments. 
A colonel of the guards, sitting near him, was 
swearing fearfully in his conversation with some 
military friends. Young Wesley was shocked. 
Calling the waiter, he said : 

"Waiter, bring me a glass of water !" 

The water was brought in. In a loud, clear 
voice, Wesley said : 

" Carry it to that gentleman in the red coat, 
and request him to wash his mouth after his 
oaths ?" 

The profane man heard him. He became furi- 
ous, and made a wild attempt to rush on his 



34 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

reprover. But his companions restrained him, one 
of them saying : 

"Nay, Colonel, you gave the first offense. 
You see the gentleman is a clergyman." 

Upon this, the soldier pocketed the affront, as 
he deemed it. It did him good, however. Years 
after, he met his reprover in St. James's Park, and, 
after recalling the above scene to his memory, said : 

"Since that time, sir, I thank God, I have 
feared an oath, and every thing that is offensive 
to the Divine Majesty. I could not refrain from 
expressing my gratitude to God and to you." 

These honorable facts give you some idea of 
the sort of man to whom God- gave the babe we 
saw, just now, at the Epworth Parsonage. He 
was a good, learned, heroic Christian minister. 
He had been rector of the old church with the 
gray tower about seven years when his son John 
was born. 

Of Samuel Wesley's sweet wife, Susannah, it 
is only necessary to say, that she was the daugh- 
ter of another of those heroic ministers who suf- 
fered the loss of all things, because they would 



FIRST FIVE YEARS. 35 

not' conform to laws which they, very properly, 
considered to be hostile to Christian liberty. Her 
maiden name was Annesley. Her ancestors were 
of noble blood • and of her it may be briefly said 
that, for learning, patience, maternal wisdom, and 
Scriptural piety, she was as noble as any among 
them, if not, indeed, the noblest of them all. We 
shall meet with her and her hard-working hus- 
band, the Rector of Epworth, many times before 
our story is ended. 

We will now suppose "little Jacky," as he was 
called in the home circle at Epworth, to have 
reached the close of the first year of his eventful 
life. Strange to say, he had already learned one 
practical lesson from his loving but firm and 
thoughtful mother ; namely, that it was useless to 
cry for any thing he wanted. She had taught him 
this first practical lesson of life by resolutely refus- 
ing to give him any thing for which he cried. 
This was a hard lesson for the mother to teach 
and for a babe to learn; but, once learned, it 
doubtless saved her much trouble, and him much 
restlessness and many tears. 



36 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

As soon as "little Jacky" could speak, he was 
taught to repeat the Lord's Prayer. Behold him, 
from that time, kneeling, with folded hands and 
closed eyes, morning and evening, first at his 
mother's knee, and, when old enough, at his bed- 
side, offering that beautiful prayer to his Father 
in heaven ! At a later period, he was taught to 
add a few simple petitions for his father and 
mother. 

As the boy grew, he learned new lessons of 
life, both by precept and by training. If he com- 
mitted a childish fault, and confessed it, he was 
freely forgiven, and no one was permitted to up- 
braid him for it afterward. If he tried to do his 
best at any thing given him to do, no matter how 
poorly it was done, he was always praised ; never 
blamed, never laughed at. For every act of obe- 
dience which cost him any sacrifice of his inclina- 
tions, he was warmly praised and frequently re- 
warded. Had he been guilty of vices, such as 
lying, cheating, or calling wicked names, he would 
have been punished with the rod, according to the 
invariable rule in that model household ; but there 



FIRST FIVE YEARS. 37 

is good reason for believing that no such vice 
stained the character of this remarkable boy; cer- 
tainly not until he was over ten years old. Every 
Thursday evening his mother took him aside, and 
talked to him most lovingly about serious things. 
By such means as these did his parents lay the 
foundation-stones upon which he afterward built 
up his fair and stately character. 

That he might not become a sickly, but a 
strong, healthy boy, he was never allowed more 
than three meals a day. Between these meals he 
was not permitted to eat or drink. At eight 
o'clock he was taken regularly to bed, and left to 
go to sleep in the dark, without an attendant re- 
maining in the room, by which practice, so early 
begun, he never learned to be afraid of being 
alone in the dark. 

The children in the Wesley family were taught 
such beautiful habits with respect to their inter- 
course with one another, that we suppose the old 
parsonage walls rarely, if ever, echoed angry voices, 
or cruel, biting words. They were all required to 
address each other as brother or sister. Hence, 



38 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

if our little John wanted his brother's ball, instead 
of rudely saying, " Sam, lend us your ball !" he 
quietly said, "Please, Brother Samuel, lend me 
your ball."' Or, if he wanted his eldest sister to 
mend a rip in his jacket, instead of vulgarly say- 
ing, " Em, just sew this rip for a fellow," he po- 
litely said, " Please, Sister Emilia, will you mend 
my jacket?" This polite way of speaking helped 
to make the intercourse of these children very de- 
lightful. It also made them grow up to be real 
ladies and gentlemen, courteous to all, servile to 
none. 

Another of their habits was to respect each 
other's little articles of property. If, for instance, 
" little Jacky " had a toy or a picture-book, neither 
Samuel nor any of his sisters would think of tak- 
ing it without his permission, much less against 
his protest. But if he exchanged or sold it to any 
of the others, he was compelled to abide by his 
bargain. By this simple device, the Wesley chil- 
were early taught to deal justly. If, however, 
Jacky had promised to lend his book or toy to 
Samuel or Mary, or either of the others, he was 



FIRST FIVE YEARS. 39 

obliged to keep his promise. By seeing this rule 
steadily enforced, all the Wesley children learned 
that promises, instead of being "like pie-crust, 
made to be broken," as a bad proverb says, are 
sacred things, and should be honorably fulfilled in 
all cases. 

" Little Jacky " also shared the benefit of still 
another happy practice. Every morning and 
evening he was taken into a . room by Samuel, 
Emilia, or Susannah, who there read to him the 
Psalms for the day, and a chapter from the Bible. 
After this, each one offered his secret morning 
and evening prayers to God. By this means these 
children were made instructors of themselves and t 
each other in the letter of that Holy Scripture 
which made them wise unto salvation. 

Perhaps you think this sort of training made 
the lives of little John and the other children at 
the parsonage very dull, and even gloomy. If so, 
you hold an opinion which is without foundation 
in fact. There is abundant evidence that all 
these children loved their parents and their early 
home with a strong, life-long affection. In all 



40 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

their subsequent changes of place and fortune, 
their hearts dwelt warmly and lovingly on the 
dear old parsonage, in which they spent their 
early days. Had their life been sad, irksome, and 
gloomy there, could they have thought of it thus ? 
Nay, nay ; they would, in that case, have tried to 
cover it with the mantle of forgetfulness. They 
would not have treasured it, as they did, among 
their most sacred recollections. Mingled with all 
the grave earnestness with which the work of life 
went on in that parsonage, there must have been 
a sweet cheerfulness in the devoted mother, and a 
frequent outburst of playfulness from the learned 
and stately father, which made it agreeable, and 
even spicy at times. Both parents believed in 
the propriety of suitable recreations; and often 
the nursery, the lawn, the garden, the croft, rang 
with the merry voices of their children playing in 
"high glee and frolic." 

There are some anecdotes of the good rector 
which prove that he, too, could unbend and be 
merry on proper occasions. His humor was 
shown, one day, at the table of a miserly man, 



FIRST FIVE YEARS. 4 1 

who, in a fit of liberality, invited a few friends to 
dinner. The Epworth rector was one of the 
guests. When the repast was over, he was so 
amused at this unwonted feast in a miser's house, 
that he repeated, impromptu, the following not 
very complimentary lines : 

"Thanks for this feast ! for 't is no less 
Than eating manna in the wilderness. 
Here some have starved, where we have found relief, 
And seen the wonders of a chine of beef; 
Here chimneys smoke which never smoked before, 
And we have dined where we shall dine no more." 

"No, gentlemen," responded the niggardly 
host, "it is too expensive." 

There is another anecdote, which states that 
the rector had a conceited clerk, who believed his 
parson to be the greatest man in Epworth, and 
himself next in worth and dignity. This clerk 
always received and wore the rector's cast-off 
wigs, which, being much too large for him, made 
his appearance ridiculous enough. One Sunday 
the parson resolved to mortify him in presence of 
the congregation, and therefore, before the service, 
he said : 



42 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

"John, I shall preach on a particular subject 
to-day, and shall choose my own psalm, of which 
I shall give out the first line, and you shall pro- 
ceed as usual." 

The time for singing came. The rector gave 
out this line: 

"And as an owl in desert is." 

This was sung, and then John, peeping out from 
his big wig, drawled out: 

" Lo ! I am such an one." 

The congregation, seeing the fitness of the line 
to the clerk's funny appearance, burst into a fit of 
laughter very unbecoming to the place and the 
hour, and very mortifying to the bewigged clerk. 

After reading these anecdotes, you can readily 
imagine that this humorous rector often shed the 
sunshine of merriment upon his children, and 
thereby helped make his family circle the "fairy- 
ring of bliss " we have reason to think it was. 




Cfykptef II. 



IN THE HOME SCHOOL AT EPWORTH. 




HE day after John's fifth birthday was a 
$ high day at the parsonage. Up to this 
b time he had not learned his alphabet, 
although, as you have seen, he had learned 
many most precious life-lessons from his mother's 
lips. But to-day he was to begin his book studies. 
For the first time, he is to become a member of 
the family school. No doubt he feels not a little 
self-important. He knows he is going to take a 
step upward, and can scarcely help feeling a little 
innocent self-gratulation. 

Breakfast is over. To every child and servant 
a task for the day is appointed, and the following 
order given -by Mrs. Wesley : 

43 



44 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

" Let no one come into the school-room to-day 
from nine till twelve, or from two till five." 

Each one goes to his appointed work. Johnny 
takes his mother's hand, and is led into the school- 
room. The door is closed. The alphabet-card is 
placed in the child's hands. In six hours, he is 
told, he must learn all these letters. There must 
be no failure. And there was none. By five 
o'clock, Master John, aided by his good mother, 
was thoroughly master of the alphabet ; and he 
went out to tea rejoicing, with the key to all 
knowledge in his hands. 

All the Wesley children accomplished the same 
feat except two, and they did it in a day and a 
half. 

The next day, Master John appeared in the 
school-room with the other children. There he 
stepped • at once from the alphabet-card to the 
Bible. No tedious, senseless primer-lessons an- 
noyed his young brain. His second lesson was 
those grand words : " In the beginning God cre- 
ated the heaven and the earth." This his mother 
taught him to spell word by word; then, to read 



HOME SCHOOL AT EPWORTH. 45 

it over and over, until he could read it off-hand 
without hesitation. 

One verse thoroughly learned, another was 
begun, until, in a surprisingly short time, the boy 
could read the whole chapter. Of course, this 
required patient painstaking on his mother's part. 
She gave it ungrudgingly, never ceasing to help 
John, and all her children, on a lesson, until it was 
most thoroughly learned. Her persistence often 
astonished her less patient husband. One day he 
said to her : 

"I wonder at your patience. You have told 
that child twenty times the same thing." 

" Had I told it only nineteen times," replied 
Mrs. Wesley, " I should have lost my labor. You 
see it was the twentieth time that crowned my 
labor." 

Noble, plodding mother ! How rich was her 
reward when, in after years, she saw her most hon- 
ored son working wonders in the kingdom of God 
with the same persistent, unwearied spirit! 

It will interest you to know how this wise lady 
came, to postpone teaching her children to read 



46 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

until they were five years old. Her eldest child, 
Samuel, though keen, active, and seemingly bright, 
could not speak a word until he was nearly five 
years of age. She feared he was dumb. But one 
day, while playing with his pet cat, he crept under 
a large table where he could not be seen. For 
more than an hour no one. was able to find him. 
At length his mother, in great alarm, called out: 

" Samuel ! Samuel I" 

To her utter astonishment, a voice, from be- 
neath the table, answered : 

"Here I am, mother! 

Thus suddenly did speech come to this back- 
ward child. Shortly after, she began to teach him 
letters. So rapidly did he learn, and so surprising 
was his memory, that, in a very short time, he 
was able to read the Bible, or any other English 
book. 

This rapid progress from a late beginning, sug- 
gested the postponement of the work of teaching 
her other children letters until they were five years 
old. She followed this practice with eminent suc- 
cess, with all her children except the youngest. 



HOME SCHOOL AT EPWORTH. 47 

With her, she began a little earlier, " and she was 
more years learning than any of the rest had been 
months. ' 

Let us now take our last look at the old rec- 
tory. It is a Winter night — February 9, 1709. 
John Wesley, his brother Charles, not yet two 
months old, three sisters, and their nurse, are all 
quietly sleeping in one room. The rest of the 
household are also wrapped in sound sleep. Sud- 
denly, just before the midnight hour, a loud voice 
is heard on the street, shouting, " Fire ! fire ! fire !" 
The rector, startled by this alarming cry, leaps 
from his bed, opens his chamber-door, and sees, 
to his great astonishment, that the fire is in his 
own house. The upper hall is filled with smoke; 
the thatched roof is in a blaze. Affrighted, but 
self-possessed, he runs, with only one stocking on, 
and carrying his breeches in his hand, to the 
chamber in which Mrs. Wesley, because of illness, 
was sleeping, with her two eldest daughters, and 
cries : 

" Rise, quick ! Shift for yourselves !" 

Then, groping his way through the blinding 



48 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

smoke to the nursery, he rouses the nurse, and 
bids her bring out the children. The girl snatches 
baby Charles from his bed, and, telling the others 
to come with her, follows Mr. Wesley through the 
hall and down the stairs. 

They find the lower hall surrounded with 
flames. On reaching the front door, the excited 
parson is horror-struck on finding that it is locked. 
The key is up-stairs. It is a critical moment. 
Every life in the household depends on the rec- 
tor's self-possession. Hesitation, confusion of pur- 
pose, will be death. But he, though trembling in 
every nerve, is equal to the occasion. Rushing up 
the staircase to the chamber, he grasps the key, 
and regains the hall before the stairway takes fire. 

No sooner is the street-door opened than a 
strong wind blows the flames into the hall. Es- 
cape is becoming difficult. Some — probably the 
rector, and the nurse with baby Charles — rush 
out at the door. Some of the children make a 
dash at the rear windows, and at a little door 
leading into the garden, and are soon safe outside. 
Mrs. Wesley, who, as we have said, is quite ill, is 



HOME SCHOOL AT EPWORTH. 49 

still in great peril, at the rear of the front hall. 
Her only clothing is a dressing-gown with a loose 
coat, which she holds over her breast, and her 
shoes. Three times she vainly tries to force her 
way through that sea of flame. She can not climb 
to the windows, nor reach the little garden-door. 
Her death seems inevitable.. When, behold, she 
prays ! Her courage is renewed. Calmly trusting 
in God, she now wades through the raging fire 
into the street. She is speechless. Her legs are 
scorched and her lips blackened, but her heart is 
grateful for her preservation. 

Meanwhile the good rector seems to have lost 
his self-possession, and is wandering about the 
street, asking every one he meets, " Have you 
seen my wife and children ?" 

To one man of some note in the village, whom 
he meets, and whose hand he grasps warmly, he 
says : " God's will be done !" 

The cruel man surlily replies : " Will you never 
have done with your tricks ? You fired your house 
once before. Did you not get money enough by 
it then, that you have fired it again ?" 



50 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

To this malicious, insulting insinuation the 
perplexed rector only answers: 

"God forgive you!'' 

A few minutes later, he finds his wife and 
children all safe, except "little Jacky," who has not 
yet been seen by any one. At that very moment 
a child's voice is heard issuing from the nursery. 
It is "Jacky," crying for help. He has been 
sleeping on, unconscious of danger, until, waking 
suddenly, he sees his chamber filled with light. 
Thinking it is time to rise, he calls his nurse. No 
one answers. Pushing aside his bed-curtains, he 
peeps out, sees "streaks of fire," jumps out of bed, 
runs to the door, where nothing meets his eye but 
a " roaring sea of flame." He turns, runs to the 
window, and utters the cry which just now fell on 
his father's ear. 

Meantime, the worthy rector, stimulated by pa- 
ternal love, almost beside himself with anguish, 
has returned to the front door. Rushing through 
the suffocating flames, he tries to ascend the stairs. 
They are half burned, and bend beneath his tread. 
Baffled, he retraces his steps through those fearful 



HOME SCHOOL AT EPWORTH. 5 I 

waves of fire, and, kneeling in the doorway, in 
utter despair of saving his precious boy, commends 
his soul to God. 

But that noble boy can not perish. God has a 
great work for him to do. While the father is on 
his knees, the boy mounts a trunk, and shows his 
little face at a window. 

"Fetch a ladder?" cries a man in the crowd. 

"There is no time for that," replies another 
man. "Come here! I will stand against the 
house. You mount my shoulders, quick!" 

It is no sooner said than done. The child is 
pulled through the casement. The next instant 
the burning roof falls, inward fortunately, and the 
child, with his deliverers, is saved ! 

Master John is now taken to his half-distracted 
father, who can not believe the little fellow is 
really in his arms, until he has kissed him two or 
three times. Then he cries out: 

"Come, neighbors, let us kneel down; let us 
give thanks to God. He has given me all my 
eight children. Let the house go. I am rich 
enough !" 



52 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Yes : that good man, praising God in the midst 
of a catastrophe which made him a beggar in 
earthly things, was rich indeed — rich in the love 
of his wife and little ones ; rich in faith, in hope, 
in heavenly love ; richer in peace, too, on that 
dreadful night, than the wealthiest sinner in his 
parish. And his riches are of that sort which fire 
can not burn. 

This trial by fire made the Rector of Epworth 
poor indeed. He had previously suffered much 
loss from the same destructive element. Shortly 
before the birth of " little Jacky," the parsonage 
had been partly burned. His year's crop of flax 
had also once perished in flames. • And now, 
every thing — house, books, manuscripts, furniture, 
clothing — was gone. He had very few friends 
in his parish willing to help him. He was too 
faithful a preacher, too far above his people in 
culture and bearing, too decidedly a Churchman, 
to command much sympathy among such ignorant, 
boorish people as formed the great body of his 
parishioners. There is, indeed, little reason for 
doubting that some of them had set fire to the 



HOME SCHOOL AT EPWORTH. 53 

parsonage, as they had previously clone to his crop 
of flax. But this dastardly act seems to have 
reacted in his favor. The best of his people, 
ashamed to see their excellent pastor so shame- 
fully abused, began to look on his many virtues, 
and to regard him with growing favor and affec- 
tion. The parsonage was rebuilt of brick, large, 
commodious, and comfortable — a good family man- 
sion. It is still standing, and occupied by the 
present lordly Rector of Epworth. But so impov- 
erished was Mr. Wesley by this fire, that eighteen 
years afterward the new parsonage was not half fur- 
nished, and Mrs. Wesley and her children, as she 
herself declared, were not more than half clothed. 
Hence, you see, Master John must have suffered 
many little deprivations in consequence of this 
unfortunate fire. 

Nor was this the only evil it brought upon him 
and the other children. During the year which it 
took to rebuild their home, they were scattered 
among neighbors, friends, and relatives. Thus 
their beautiful home habits were broken in upon, 
their studies neglected, their religious culture and 



54 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

training suspended. They were exposed, also, to 
evil influences. They were improperly indulged. 
Bad examples led them to become rude in speech 
and rough in manner. How much Master John's 
character suffered from these causes is not known. 
Doubtless he was injured; but probably not so 
severely as the others ; for, though only about six 
years old, he was sober and firm beyond his years. 

About a year after the fire, the Wesley children 
gladly came together again in the new parsonage. 
The old, happy, busy life began again. Six hours 
of the day were spent in the school-room. Mrs. 
Wesley was their chief teacher. Her husband as- 
sisted her at times. She was a fine scholar, a su- 
perior teacher, and she taught all her children until 
they were old enough to be sent away to school. 

She now took particular pains with John. His 
wonderful escape had impressed her with the idea 
that God intended him to act some great and 
unusual part in the history of the world. She 
therefore took particular pains with his early edu- 
cation. In one of her written prayers in his behalf, 
she said : 



HOME SCHOOL AT EPWORTH. 55 

" O Lord, I do intend to be more particularly 
careful of the soul of this child that thou hast so 
mercifully provided for, than ever I have been, 
that I may do my best to instill into his mind the 
principles of thy true religion and virtue." 

That God heard and answered this loving, ear- 
nest mother's prayers, there can be no reasonable 
doubt. The beautiful character, the grand life of 
her noble son, is ample evidence that she had 
grace given her by which to mold and fashion his 
plastic young soul. 

While it is certain that little John was cheerful, 
and even gay, in his disposition, it is equally cer- 
tain that he was more sober and studious than 
most children. It rarely happens, as you know too 
well, that a boy between seven and ten years old, 
pauses, when about to do any common act, to ask 
himself if the thing he wants to do is proper and 
right. It is enough for him to know that other boys 
do it, that it has not been forbidden to him. But 
our thoughtful little John always reflected before 
acting, asking himself, "Why should I do this or 
that?" and, "Is it right?" If, for example, any 



$6 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

one offered him an orange or an apple between 
meals, instead of taking and eating it without 
thought, he looked gravely into the giver's face, 
and replied : 

"I thank you. I will think of it." 

This habit was so strong in him, and was ap- 
plied to so many things, that one day his father 
said to him, half reprovingly: 

" Child, you think to carry every thing by dint 
of argument ; but you will find how little is done 
in the world by close reasoning." 

At another time, after witnessing one of his 
un childish attempts to. reason about some simple 
act, his father, somewhat pettishly, remarked to 
Mrs. Wesley: 

" I profess, sweetheart, I think our Jack would 
not attend to the most pressing necessities of 
nature" (such as eating and drinking), "unless he 
could give a reason for it." 

But while "our Jack" often surprised his good 
father with his peculiarities, he also won his confi- 
dence and admiration. So satisfied was the 
stately parson with his son's conduct, that he 



HOME SCHOOL AT EPWORTH. 57 

allowed him to partake of the Lord's-supper when 
he was only eight years old ! How the good rec- 
tor's heart must have swelled with holy joy, when 
he saw his devout little son kneeling beside the 
spare form of his happy wife at the communion- 
table! And what pure gladness must have filled 
the child's heart when his lips touched the sym- 
bols which brought so forcibly to his mind the 
love of Jesus, once the Christ-child, who shed his 
blood for children as well as for adults! That he 
really loved his Lord at that time, is not doubtful. 
Many years afterward, he said that he was ten 
years old before he sinned away the comfort and 
washing of the Holy Spirit, of which his infant 
baptism was the appointed symbol. Alas ! how 
few children can say as much as this ! 

John also gave early marks of that power of 
patient endurance for which he was so distin- 
guished in after years. When over eight years old, 
he had that wretched disease, the small-pox. His 
father was from home at the time, and his mother 
wrote him, saying : 

"Jack has borne his disease bravely, like a 



58 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

man — and, indeed, like a Christian — without any 
complaint ; though he seemed angry at the small- 
pox when they were sore, as we guessed by his 
looking sourly at them ; for he never said any 
thing." 

These are all the known facts about Wesley's 
childhood. They show him to have been brave, 
patient, enduring, polite, studious, obedient, thought- 
ful, clear-headed, firm, loving, and pious, up to his 
tenth year, when he was sent from home to a 
public school in London. 



dilute* III. 




WESLEY AS A PUBLIC SCHOOL BOY. 

JHE hero of our story has now reached the 
middle of the eleventh year of his life. 
His father, through the friendly influence 
of the Duke of Buckingham, has secured 
him a scholarship in the Charter-house School, 
near Smithfield, in the city of London. He must 
therefore go out from that quiet, orderly, love-lighted 
home at the parsonage, away from the guardian- 
ship of his learned father, and the loving watch- 
fulness of his noble mother, into the rough, turbu- 
lent life of a public school. It was like passing 
suddenly from the balmy air of lune into the cold, 
freezing atmosphere of November. 

You can readily imagine the boyish hopes, the 
sad farewells, the mother's tearful, longing looks, 

59 



60 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

the brotherly and sisterly adieus and kisses, of the 
parting hour. You can fancy you see him in some 
lumbering vehicle of the olden times, seated beside 
his father, looking curiously on the scenery, asking 
innumerable questions, as he rode over the rough, 
muddy roads of that period. You can conceive 
his feelings when the carriage reached the busy 
city, and his eyes rested on the lofty dome of St. 
Paul's Cathedral. How elated he must have been, 
as he rode through those busy streets ! How anx- 
iety, not unmixed with dread, must have damped 
his spirits, when, drawing near Smithfield, he began 
to shrink from his first meeting with the stern, dig- 
nified masters, and the strange, bold boys of the 
Charter-house School ! It was a great change for 
so young a boy ; but, no doubt, " Jacky " met it 
bravely, and entered hopefully on his new life. 

This Charter-house School was an old institu- 
tion, founded by a merchant named Thomas Sut- 
ton, in 1611. He left a sum of money sufficient 
to board, clothe, and educate forty boys, perpet- 
ually, in an ancient building erected and long oc- 
cupied by a set of lazy Carthusian monks. Its 



A PUBLIC SCHOOL BOY. 6 1 

original name was Chartreux, from the town in 
which that order of monks originated. The man- 
gled body of its last prior had been hung over the 
big wooden gates through which young Wesley 
passed to his new home — an unpleasant recollec- 
tion, surely, if the boy had been taught its history. 

Within, this Charter-house had much to attract 
and please the new student. There were spacious 
play-grounds for football and hockey, long courts 
in front of the old cloisters or cells of the ancient 
monks, fine shaded walks, lawns, and fountains. 
There was a grand hall for festal occasions, a 
large school-room with ornamented ceiling, and a 
big kitchen, formerly the banqueting-hall of the 
jolly old monks, who, in their latter days, were 
greater lovers of good roast-beef and seasoned 
venison than of earnest prayers and deeds of 
Christian charity. 

We can picture our plucky, studious little 
"Jacky" standing, with his thirty-nine compan- 
ions, on the foundation, or free-list, of the school — 
"gown-scholars," they were called — and the nu- 
merous other boys whose tuition was paid by their 



62 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

friends. And this is nearly all we can do; for 
very little is known about the details of his life 
within its walls. That he looked on the senior 
boys with a sort of small boy's reverence, be- 
cause, measured by his own size, they looked so 
big in his eyes, we learn from his Journal. We 
are sure, also, that he was a quick, diligent, per- 
severing student, as fond of inquiring into the 
reason of things as he had been while in the 
dear old home at Epworth. The proof of his dil- 
igence is in the fact that, at the early age of six- 
teen and a half, he was prepared to enter college 
at Oxford. Let those humdrum lads and misses 
who groan under the burden of mere academic 
studies at that age, make a note of this fact, and 
be shamed into praiseworthy emulation of our 
great founder's school-boy industry ! 

But John's road through the Charter-house to 
Oxford was neither smooth nor flowery, but rough 
and thorny. It was the custom, in those rude 
days, for the big boys to act the part of tyrants 
over the little ones, in the great public schools 
of England. They forced them to perform menial 



A PUBLIC SCHOOL BOY. 63 

services, as "fags." They thrashed and otherwise 
abused them. They even robbed them of their 
food. So severe was the ordeal through which 
a small boy had to pass, that sensitive, timid 
boys were sometimes seriously injured. Cowper, 
one of England's greatest poets, is a sad exam- 
ple. His delicately strung nature was so wearied 
and strained by his treatment at Westminster 
school, that his nervous system broke down, and 
he was unfitted for contact with the rough realities 
of active life; and he consequently spent most 
of his days, sad and melancholy, in retirement, 
with sympathizing friends. Happily for himself 
and the world, young Wesley was made of sterner 
stuff. Though known as a poverty-stricken boy, 
and abused accordingly by the sons of men who 
were richer, but not half so manly as his father; 
though robbed by the big boys of his portion of 
meat so steadily that, through most of his career 
at the Charter-house, he lived chiefly on bread and 
soups; yet he bore up bravely against his trials, 
retained his spirits and his health, and left the 
school, at last, a strong, high-spirited, and hopeful 
5 



64 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

lad. He never learned to succumb to trials or 
difficulties. 

Perhaps one cause of his ability to endure 
these trials was his steadfast obedience to one of 
his good father's commands. Before leaving him 
at school, Mr. Wesley had said : 

"Jacky, I want you to promise me that you 
will run around the green at the Charter-house 
three times every morning. " 

Probably this request appeared singular and 
arbitrary to the boy ; but. he had the good sense to 
give the required promise, and the honor to stick 
to it to the very close of his school-life. The 
effect of that brisk daily run in the fresh morning 
air, on his spirits and his bodily vigor, was to ena- 
ble him to breast the tide of his troubles boldly 
and successfully ; it also laid the foundation of 
that remarkable cheerfulness and health which 
fitted him, in after life, to perform his astonishing 
• labors. Had he despised his father's wish, and 
lost his health, the world would probably have 
never heard of him as the founder of a mighty 
Church. Let headstrong boys' mark well this 



A PUBLIC SCHOOL BOY. 65 

fact in our hero's life, and learn that there is often 
a hidden wisdom in a father's command, which can 
only be fully comprehended by obeying it. 

Another help to Master John was the friend- 
ship of the head-master, Dr. Thomas Walker, in 
whose good graces he stood very high. Nor was 
this favor capricious, or obtained by cringing. It 
was fairly earned by his superiority as a scholar. 
It must have consoled him richly in his troubles. 
What were the insults and tyranny of thoughtless 
big boys, compared with the head-master's praises ! 

On the 12th of every December, the scholars 
of the Charter-house kept high festival. It was 
the anniversary of their foundation. Games in 
courts and cloisters, feastings in the old monkish 
banqueting-hall, addresses and songs in the grand 
hall, made the day a merry one for the boys. 
Among their songs was an old Carthusian mel- 
ody, with the following chorus : 

"Then blessed be the memory 
Of good old Tho?nas Sutton ; 
Who gave us lodgings, learning, and 
He gave us beef and mutton !" 



66 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Poor poetry, you say. Yes : but we print it be- 
cause we love to picture the earnest, honest face 
of little Jacky, among the other "gown scholars," 
singing it with open mouth, his eyes, may be, fixed 
on the splendid portrait of their founder which 
graced the hall, and his heart wondering whether 
the good old man ever thought that the b-ig boys 
would rob the little ones of their portion of the 
beef and mutton so liberally provided for with his 
money, and so gleefully celebrated in their festival 
songs. 

When young Wesley reached the upper "forms," 
or classes, it is gratifying to know that he was not 
guilty of the customary meanness of tyrannizing 
over the little boys. To his credit it can be 
said, that he chose them for companions, became 
their instructor, and, in ' some sort, their leader. 
They delighted to gather around him in some of 
the courts, and listen eagerly to his orations. To 
them, instead of a tyrant, he was a star of the 
first magnitude, and they rejoiced in his beams. 

His teacher wondered at conduct so unusual ; 
and one day the usher, Andrew Tooke, broke in 






A PUBLIC SCHOOL BOY. 67 

upon him in the midst of his oration, and said, 
in a tone of authority: 

"Wesley, follow me !" 

With great reluctance, the blushing lad obeyed, 
and went after the intruding usher, into a private 
room. 

" Wesley," said the usher, after closing the 
door, "how is it that you are so often found 
among the boys of the lower forms, and not in 
the company of the bigger boys, your equal-s?" 

To the astonishment of the teacher, the boy 
looked up, and calmly answered with the Miltonic 
quotation : 

" Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." 

What could the usher do with such a boy but 
permit him to continue his rule, which was evi- 
dently beneficial to his willing subjects? But what 
did the lad mean by his reply ? Did he intend to 
say he was so ambitious that he preferred being a 
ruler in wickedness to a servant of the good ? 
By no means. As we interpret him, he meant 
that since he had little hope of being useful to the 



68 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

rough, mischief-loving tyrants of the upper forms, 
he choose to make companions of the little boys, 
to whom he could communicate some useful 
knowledge. The usher probably so understood 
him; for it does not appear that he forbade the 
continuance of his reign. Perhaps he saw in the 
strange reply the germ of that divine ambition 
which led the lad, years afterward, to turn from 
the proud dignitaries and gentry of the Church, 
who rejected his message, to the poor colliers 
and other low-class people, who heard him gladly. 
But whether he saw it or not, we can. 

About five years of the boy's life was spent 
in the Charter-house school. When sixteen years 
and a half old, he quitted it with scholarly honor, 
and was entered as a student at Christ Church, 
Oxford. He seems to have loved his school-life, 
on the whole. He always spoke kindly, feelingly 
even, of the place ; and once every year, when in 
London, he visited it, and took his old walk round 
the Green. It is to be feared, however, that he 
was not so good a lad when he left as when he 
entered its cloisters. Evil influences had sapped 



A PUBLIC SHOOL BOY. 69 

the life of his early piety. Unsupported by the 
wise counsels of his father and the sweet influ- 
ence of his mother, he had permitted the bad ex- 
amples of his schoolmates to lead him into prac- 
tices displeasing to God. Read his own sad but 
honest confession on this point : 

" Outward restraints being removed," he says, 
"I was much more negligent than before, even of 
outward duties, and almost continually guilty of 
outward sins, which I knew to be such, though 
they were not scandalous in the eye of the world. 
However, I still read the Scriptures, and said 
my prayers morning and evening. And what I 
now hoped to be saved by was, — 1. Not being so 
bad as other people; 2. Having still a kindness 
for religion ; and, 3. Reading the Bible, going to 
church, and saying my prayers." 

That you may not suppose young Wesley worse 
than he really was, I must inform you that, like 
the great apostle Paul, he was always very severe 
when he sat in judgment on himself. I have no 
idea that the lad was, in any sense, openly im- 
moral while at school. That he lost the favor of 



7o 



A WONDERFUL LIFE. 



God which he enjoyed at Epworth, is doubtless 
true. As one of his biographers^ says, "John 
Wesley entered the Charter-house a saint, and left 
it a sinner." Alas, that a life so fairly begun 
should have had this stain upon it, even for a short 
time! But it had; and the painful fact should 
teach every pious youth, whose duties call him 
away from the sweet restraints of home into the 
battle-field of active life, "diligently to watch and 
pray lest he enter into temptation. " 
* Tyerman. 




dltkptef IV. 



WESLEY'S STUDENT LIFE AT OXFORD. 



HBWOUNG WESLEY is now seventeen years 
f j[f 3) old, and is elected to one of the Charter- 
''% house scholarships in Christ Church, Ox- 
*y ford. Not without some regrets, we imag- 
ine, but with more hope than sorrow, he mounts 
the stage-coach in London, and journeys, fifty- 
three miles, to venerable Oxford. Doubtless his 
young heart beats with quickened throbs, when 
from the coach-top, on reaching an eminence near 
that city of colleges, he obtains his first view of 
its stately domes and moss covered towers. Beau- 
tiful for situation, lying between the Isis and the 
Cherwell, with gardens stretching down to the 
water-side — with its nineteen college edifices and 
its numerous churches, half hid among grand old 

7i 



J2 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

trees — it charms his eye and delights his imagi- 
nation. As an intelligent lad, he calls up many 
of its romantic historical associations. This city, 
he thinks, was once the abode of our Saxon kings. 
Here the fierce Danes struggled for conquest. 
William the Norman visited this place with sword 
and fire, because of its Saxon loyalty. Yonder, 
coming from Woodstock Park, Henry I often rode 
in brilliant array, with pennons, knights, esquires, 
and men-at-arms. Fair Rosamond lies molder- 
ing in the dust of yonder meadow. Across, that 
river, Queen Maud, her troops beaten in battle, 
escaped one Winter's night, dressed in white, like 
the ice and snow which, happily for her, covered 
its frigid waters. 

Passing from thoughts of these royal person- 
ages, it is not unlikely that young Wesley called 
up that doughty champion of the truth, Wyclif, 
the bright "morning-star of the Reformation," 
whose fearless tongue once waked startling echoes 
from the walls of those old Oxford churches, and 
begot living hopes in the breasts of many of its 
ancient citizens. There, amid the fire and smoke 



LIFE AT -OXFORD. 73 

of the martyr's stake, he probably pictured the 
serene faces of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, 
whose heroic souls ascended to their heavenly 
coronation from its squares. Such thoughts as 
these, mingled, it may be, with anxieties respecting 
himself, must have stirred deep emotions in his 
breast, as, dismounting from the stage, he finally 
passed beneath the stately gateway of Christ 
Church, over pavements which had been trodden 
by students like himself for more than two hundred 
years. 

It would, no doubt, interest you greatly, could 
we lift the veil, and let you see young Wesley as 
he appeared when with his tutor, Dr. Wigan, and 
when in his room at study, and at the college ex- 
aminations. But there are no means of doing 
this. The details of his student-life at Christ 
Church seem never to have been recorded. This 
much, however, is certain ; he was a superior 
scholar, and made ■ rapid progress, especially in 
his classical studies. He appears to have loved 
knowledge for its own sake, and to have studied, 
up to his twenty-second year, with no higher 



74 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

object than simply to know. Hence, when twenty- 
one, he was described as a a very sensible and 
acute collegian — a young fellow of the first clas- 
sical taste, of the most liberal and manly senti- 
ments." Very complimentary words, these ; and, 
no doubt, well merited. 

Oxford students in those days were not re- 
markable for either morality or piety. On the con- 
trary, a student of decided piety was a rare char- 
acter in those ancient halls of learning. Boating, 
racing, gambling, frolicking, and roystering were 
far more congenial pursuits to most, than either 
praying or studying. It need not surprise us, 
therefore, if we find young Wesley entering into 
the spirit and engaging in some, at least, of the 
sports of his associates. His career at the Char- 
ter-house would incline us to expect this. Having 
lost the peace of God, and thrown off his fear, in 
some degree, while at school, how could he escape 
the still mightier evil influence of the College ? 

That he did not, is proved beyond dispute by 
his own words. Speaking of this portion of his 
life, he says : 



LIFE AT OXFORD. 75 

" I had not, all this while, so much as a notion 
of inward holiness; nay, I went on habitually — 
and, for the most part, very contentedly — in some 
or other known sin ; though with some intermission 
and short struggles." 

One feels sad to read this confession from the 
young man whose early boyhood had been spent 
among the loving sanctities of Epworth Rectory. 
Surely, the sweet influences of that delightful home 
ought to have clothed the student as with impen- 
etrable armor, and made him proof against the 
temptations both of school and college! That 
they did not is a solemn fact, which should teach 
you the weakness of young souls when exposed 
to the cunning temptations of that arch-tempter 
whose delight it is to entice their unwary feet 
from those hallowed paths into which they were 
so early led by the soft hands of maternal love. 

But do not let this confession of the great 
Wesley concerning his college days mislead you. 
Such was his deep humility in the after-time of 
his life, that he was apt to paint his own, errors 
in very black letters, as we have intimated in a 



76 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

previous chapter. You must not, therefore, picture 
him as a reckless young man, rushing into the 
ways of bacchanalians and sirens. That he was 
gay, sprightly, fond of lively society, there is little 
room to doubt. He was a great humorist, a pol- 
ished wit, a rare conversationalist, and would be 
likely to frequent those merry students' circles in 
which such talent was enjoyed and applauded. 
That he indulged in needless expenses is proved 
by his father's frequent letters sharply upbraiding 
him for getting into debt; though your view of 
even this fault must be modified by the fact that 
his main dependence for support was on the two 
hundred dollars per annum which he received from 
his Charter-house scholarship. Consider that, 
whatever else he did, he still said his "prayers, 
both public and private;" that he "read, with the 
Scriptures, several other books of religion, espe- 
cially comments on the New Testament ;" that he 
took the sacrament three times a year; and that 
he never neglected his studies, — and you must be 
satisfied that, though not pious, though to a lim- 
ited degree gay, perhaps convivial, his garments 



LIFE AT OXFORD. JJ 

were never soiled with the spots of outbreaking 
mmoralities. 

Nay, such religious practices as his are always 
flung off by abandoned young men. But the pure 
spirit of his Epworth home followed young Wesley 
in his spiritual and moral wanderings, such as 
they were, and kept him from leaping into those 
abysses of wickedness in which so many of his 
fellow-students delighted to wallow. 

The porter of Christ Church, who appears to 
have been a pious though very odd man, came 
late one evening to our student's room, and said 
he would like to talk with him. After a little 
pleasant banter, Wesley said : 

" Go home and get another coat !" 

" This is the only coat I have in the world, and 
I thank God for it," replied the poor porter. 

"Go home and get your supper, then?" 

"I have had nothing to-day but a drink of 
water, and I thank God for that," rejoined the 
man. 

"It is late, and you will be locked out, and 
then what will you have to thank God for?" 



78 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

"I will thank him that I have the bare stones 
to lie upon." 

"John" said young Wesley, "you thank God 
when you have nothing to wear, nothing to eat, 
and no bed to lie on ; what else do you thank 
him for?" 

"I thank him," responded the good man, "that 
he has given me life and being, a heart to love 
him, and a desire to serve him." 

The simple speech and evident sincerity of 
this grateful servant of the Lord Jesus, as Mr. 
Wesley afterward stated, made a deep impression 
upon him. When he left, there remained of his 
words a conviction, in the gay young student's 
mind, that there was something in religion to 
which he was yet a stranger. The exact value of 
that poor porter's contribution to the development 
of young Wesley's religious character can never be 
known until God himself declare it. 

Mr. Wesley is now nearly twenty-two years of 
age. He has been more than four years at college, 
and is beginning to inquire what he shall do— 
what profession he shall enter. What his pre- 



LIFE AT OXFORD. 79 

vious ideas on this point had been, is not known ; 
but now his thoughts very naturally turn toward 
the ministry. I say, naturally; because his blood 
was clerical on the side of both parents. That he 
was not yet truly a Christian was not generally 
thought to be a serious unfitness for the sacred 
office of the ministry in those evil times. In 
those days, many men sought the pulpit as they 
did the bar; that is, to earn their bread. But 
now that the high-minded young Wesley begins to 
think of the ministry, he rises at a bound above 
the ideas of his times, and earnestly seeks to fit 
himself for the sacred vocation, by careful and 
extensive reading of books on religion. He also 
writes to his learned father and wise mother for 
counsel and advice. He has attained his major- 
ity, and is a learned man ; but he does not regard 
himself wise enough to choose his calling with- 
out first obtaining the light which shines from 
parental wisdom. 

Among the books he reads, is the " Christian's 
Pattern," by Thomas a Kempis, and " Holy Liv- 
ing and Dying," by Jeremy Taylor. The first 
6 



80 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

leads him to see that religion is more than an out- 
ward form j that it implies the surrender of the 
heart, the whole heart, to God. The second con- 
vinces him that " every part" of his "life (not 
some only) must be a sacrifice either to God or 
to self; that is, in effect, to the devil." 

About the same time, God kindly orders his 
steps, so that he meets with a " religious friend/'' 
which, he ingenuously says, "I never had until 
now." No wonder the Charter-house scholar and 
Oxford student went astray ! During all those crit- 
ical eleven years, no loving disciple of his moth- 
er's Lord had appeared to whisper the words of 
Christian friendship in his youthful ears. Alas ! 
what evil times and. places were those in which 
the great spiritual reformer spent his boyhood 
and youth, after quitting the genial shelter of the 
rectory at Ep worth ! 

But now the happy change has begun in good 
earnest*. The scales have fallen, in part at least, 
from the young man's eyes. There is much mist 
about him yet. But his earnest nature is roused, 
and he says, "I began to alter the whole form of 



LIFE AT OXFORD. 8 1 

my conversation, and to set in earnest upon a 
new life." 

With this brave purpose in his heart, he begins 
to reform his life. He prays much; he watches 
his thoughts, his words, his actions. He spends 
an hour or two daily in religious thought. He 
goes to the communion every week. He denies 
himself; eating the simplest food, and drinking 
water only. He aims at being a holy man in 
heart and life. His whole nature is stirred within 
him. His back, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, is toward 
the City of Destruction ; his face is set sternly, 
immovably, toward the Celestial City. 

It is a grand struggle on which our young 
student has entered. The stake is not a college 
honor, a Church living, the bubble reputation, the 
bauble wealth, the phantom fame ; nay — but his 
soul, his happiness, present and future, in time 
and in eternity. The noblest stake which any 
man can strive to win. 

The struggle in our student's case will be long 
and toilsome. As we have said, there is a mist 
about him — the exhalation of the formal Chris- 



82 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

tianity of his age — and he does not yet see the 
simple truth that Jesus saves, Jesus only. He 
says, "That now doing so much and living so 
good a life, I doubted not that I was a good 
Christian. " 

Until that trust in his own doings is sloughed 
off from his faith, and he trusts in Jesus only, our 
student will struggle on in pain and disappoint- 
ment. We will now follow him through his almost 
marvelous battle with this misconception of true 
faith, up to his victory at the cross. 



dlikptetf V. 




WESLEY AS FELLOW OF LINCOLN. 



UR student is now twenty-two years of age. 

|K| The current of his being, his thoughts, his 

desires, his affections, are flowing toward 



God with the steadfast movement of a 
great river. Acting in harmony with his high 
purpose to keep the commands of his Maker, he 
seeks ordination as a deacon in the Church of 
England. He is set apart for the work of the holy 
ministry by the hands of the. great and good 
Bishop Potter, who also ordained him priest or 
elder three years later. 

The year following his ordination as deacon, a 
very uncommon honor for a young man of twenty- 
three is conferred upon Wesley. He is elected a 
" Fellow " of Lincoln College, Oxford, over many 

83 



84 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

competitors, and in spite of bitter opposition from 
many who regard him as being " righteous over- 
much." This victory is the fruit of his high repu- 
tation as a scholar, gained by unceasing devotion 
to study. 

What is a " Fellow 1" you inquire. The term is 
peculiar to English colleges, and needs explana- 
tion. Fellows are the governors of a college ; they 
manage its affairs, elect its head; act as moder- 
ators at disputations, serve as tutors to individual 
students, and as lecturers to classes. They are 
supported from the funds of the college, receive 
fees from students for their services as tutors, and 
are eligible to such livings or churches as are in 
the gift of their college. The office is both honor- 
able and comfortable. It may be held during life, 
provided the incumbent does not marry. 

John's father is delighted with his son's elec- 
tion to this Fellowship, and exclaims jubilantly in 
a letter otherwise sad : 

"Wherever I am,, my Jack is Fellow of Lin- 
coln !" 

The rector of Ep worth was now a feeble man. 



A FELLOW OF LINCOLN. 85 

Close study, hard parish work, financial perplex- 
ities, and a malarious climate had robbed the good 
old gentleman of much vigor. Palsy had be- 
numbed his limbs. He had also the care of an 
additional parish, Wroote, on his hands, and could 
not obtain such a curate as he desired. In his 
sore need he turned to his son John, and besought 
him to come to his aid. Like a good son, our 
young deacon gratifies his father's wish, obtains 
leave to be absent from college, and goes down to 
Epworth. 

For nearly two years he preaches at Epworth 
and Wroote, spending much of his time in study, 
and striving to keep the whole law of God. He 
preaches the truth with great fidelity, but confesses 
with characteristic frankness, '*! saw no fruit of 
my labor." No wonder. He has not yet learned 
to look for salvation by faith only. He is not, 
therefore, baptized with fire, and his hour of suc- 
cess in winning souls has not yet come. 

But this quiet and fruitless life in the swamps 
at Wroote, and among the boorish villagers of 
Epworth, is not to continue. God has a grander 



86 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

sphere in preparation for our scholarly young 
preacher. He must needs, therefore, return for a 
while to Oxford, to undergo the stern ordeal of 
persecution. A peremptory letter from the rector 
of his college recalls him to those academic 
shades, where we now find him acting as tutor 
to eleven, students (a number subsequently in- 
creased), lecturing on Greek, and presiding as 
moderator over the class disputations. 

Before describing our young hero's life during 
the next six years of his stay at Oxford, we will 
present you with a sketch of his personal appear- 
ance, as given by his contemporaries when he was 
about twenty-six years old. Picture him, then, in 
your imagination, as a young man below the aver- 
age size, with a symmetrical frame compactly built, 
and with finely-formed limbs. His face, though 
not womanly, is refined to the verge of womanli- 
ness ; its delicate features being finely cut, and 
irradiated with the soft light of a cheerful dispo- 
sition. His eyes are dark, brilliant, penetrating. 
His mouth is beautifully formed, with lips indic- 
ative of firmness. He wears his hair long and 



A FELLOW OF LINCOLN. 8? 

flowing, down to his shoulders. There is an air 
of authority, but not of assumption, about him; 
and his aspect is that of a man self-centered, not 
easily moved from his own purposes, but born to 
sway the wills of other men. 

Such is John Wesley, as seen even by indiffer- 
ent observers. The following description of the 
impression he made upon his friends, shortly after 
this period, is from the pen of Alexander Knox. 
He says : " His countenance, as well as his con- 
versation, expressed an habitual gayety of heart, 
which nothing but conscious innocence and virtue 
could have bestowed. He was, in truth, the most 
perfect specimen of moral happiness I ever saw ; 
and my acquaintance with him has done more to 
teach me what a heaven upon earth is implied in 
the maturity of Christian piety, than all I have else- 
where seen or heard or read, except in the Sacred 
Volume." 

Such is John Wesley while pursuing his career 
as Fellow of Lincoln. Strange that such a man 
should become a target for poisoned arrows, dis- 
charged, not by the hands of madcap students 



88 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

only, but also by college dignitaries, by men sol- 
emnly pledged to the work of Christian education ! 

About the time Wesley became " Fellow of Lin- 
coln," his brother Charles, afterward the "sweet 
singer " of Methodism, who was five years younger 
than himself, became a student at Christ Church 
College. He had prepared for college at West- 
minster Grammar-school, where, as John had done 
at the Charter-house, he lost some of the sweet 
influences of his Epworth home. When he came 
to Oxford, John found him to be a "gay young 
fellow," with "more genius than grace," loving 
pleasure better than piety. John tried to revive 
the sparks of his early fireside devotion ; but he 
playfully rejoined : 

"What, would you have me to be a saint all 
at once?" 

But, while John was preaching for his father at 
Wroote and Epworth, Charles became serious, and 
began to care for his soul. Among other things, 
he went to the sacrament every week, and induced 
two fellow-students, named Kirkham and Morgan, 
to join him. 



A FELLOW OF LINCOLN. 89 

When John returned to Oxford, he gladly 
joined this little band. Under his influence, they 
became more and more strict and devout. One 
day a student, struck by the regularity of their 
conduct, called them Methodists. The name, 
which had been applied to very religious people, 
perhaps a century before, was quaint, and it took. 
It stuck to them, and to all who became connected 
with them, until it became what it now is, the dis- 
tinguishing name of one of the largest Protestant 
bodies of Christians on the globe. 

Wesley's religious purposes now became inten- 
sified to the highest degree. To do the will of the 
Highest became the chief object of his life. He 
could have chosen something lower, as most 
around him had done. A life of learned ease, 
Church preferment, even a bishop's miter, the 
fame of superior scholarship, the friendship of the 
great in Church and State, were objects clearly 
within reach of his great powers. But he delib- 
erately — may I not say nobly ? — spurned them all, 
that he might win Christ. 

Listen to his noble words. Said he : " I once 



90 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

desired to make a fair show in language and phi- 
losophy. But it is past. There is a more excel- 
lent way \ and if I can not attain to any progress 
in one without throwing up all thoughts of the 
other, why, fare it well I" 

Listen again: "I am to renounce the world; 
to draw off my affections from this world, and fix 
them on a better." 

Once more : " As for reputation, though it be a 
glorious instrument of advancing our Master's 
service, yet there is a better than that — a clean 
heart, a single eye, a soul full of God." 

These words imply heroic self-devotion to a 
glorious object. Had he given himself to the dis- 
covery of a new continent, like Columbus ; to the 
invention of some useful art, like Palissy and 
Goodyear ; to the enlargement of natural science, 
like Linnaeus and Faraday, — he would have acted 
a noble part, provided he had not neglected relig- 
ion. But when he made the pursuit of religion 
his master passion, treading all mere earthly aims 
under foot, and throwing the whole force of his 
being into the pursuit of God's favor and the 



A FELLOW OF LINCOLN. 9 1 

doing of God's will, he did a sublime deed. He 
grappled with the grandest interest of the human 
soul, and soared into sympathy with the highest 
form of human life* 

You may perceive the wisdom of this heavenly 
passion, by recalling those great words of Jesus 
which assure that he who " seeks first the king- 
dom of heaven" shall have the earthly things 
"added." Put the earthly first, and you shall lose 
the real good it contains, and heaven with it. Let 
God be chief, and you shall enjoy him, and with 
him all that is worth having of the earthly. This 
is the theory of Christ. Mr. Wesley found it true, 
and so may 3 T ou. 

Having resolved loftily, Wesley acted diligently. 
First, he studied with a devotion equaled by few, 
excelled by none, of the Oxford literati. Next, 
he spent much time daily in secret prayer and in 
reading Holy Scripture. He partook of the sac- 
rament every week. He fasted severely; he de- 
nied himself every luxury in food and dress. He 
observed saints' days and holidays with ritualistic 
fidelity — things, by the way, which he might, with 



92 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

greater wisdom, have omitted. He visited the 
sick, the poor, and the prisoners in Oxford jail. 
He instructed poor children, exhorted his stu- 
dents to become Christians, built up the religious 
society begun by his brother in the university, 
spent the greater part of his income in aiding the 
poor, and walked, on more than one occasion, 
sixty miles, hoping to get instruction for his soul 
from a pious man. In short, he filled every wak- 
ing hour with strenuous efforts to keep the law 
of God in thought, in feeling, and in act. And 
this, not fitfully, but regularly, day by day, and 
year after year. Never did any man pursue his 
chosen end with more self-sacrificing devotion. 

Wesley's singular devotion, and his success in 
interesting other university men, to the number' of 
twenty-seven, was met by bitter opposition from 
students, tutors, fellows, proctors, and the digni- 
taries of the university generally. Vital piety was 
a rare thing in those days, and when it was so 
strikingly illustrated by Wesley and his associates, 
it quickened the evil passions of many into vio- 
lent activity. They nicknamed them Methodists, 



A FELLOW OF LINCOLN. 93 

the Holy Club, the Godly Club, Bible IVJoths, 
crack-brained enthusiasts, fools, and superstitious 
madmen. Mr. Wesley they called "Curator and 
Father of the Holy Club." The censors of the col- 
lege once met "to blow up the Godly Club." All 
manner of false reports were invented. They were 
threatened, ostracized, and treated with insult. 
Most of them bore these trials of their faith hero- 
ically, for a time at least. Wesley himself never 
flinched. Said he: "111 men say all manner of 
evil of me, and good men believe them. There is 
a way, and there is but one, of making my peace. 
God forbid I should ever take it I" 

Great words, these, of a true man! They 
came from the soul of a genuine hero — from a 
man who could have gone bravely to the stake for 
his Master's sake, but whose denial of his Lord 
could not have been bought with all the pomps and 
vanities of time, or wrung out of him by torturing 
rack or burning pincers. Yes : the martyr's spirit 
was in our honored Wesley. 

The young gentlemen who associated with the 
Wesley brothers, also shared their persecutions, 



94 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

On the day of the weekly sacrament at St. Mary's 
Church, to which the members of the " Holy 
Club" resorted with scrupulous fidelity, crowds of 
undergraduates, smiled on by college dignitaries, 
collected in courts and quadrangles, to heap in- 
sults upon them. It was no light cross to run the 
gauntlet between the lines of these ribald young 
gownsmen, who jeered, hooted, hissed, hurled 
stinging sarcasms, and pointed scornful fingers at 
the meek little band of Oxford Methodists. 

Nor was this their only trial. Opposition, in 
one case at least, took the form of personal vio- 
lence. Said a college dignitary to his nephew: 

" If you go to weekly communion, I will turn 
you out of doors." 

The youth listened with meekness, while he si- 
lently prayed for grace to obey God rather than 
man. God helped him, and he went to the next 
communion. His learned uncle was then enraged, 
seized him by the throat, and shook him violently. 

This wrong the youth also endured in the spirit 
of meekness, and continued to " break bread " at 
St. Mary's with his companions. 



A FELLOW OF LINCOLN. 95 

Then the uncle, seeing that threats and per 
sonal violence availed nothing, tried the power of 
soft words. Persuasive flattery succeeded where 
force had failed. The young man yielded, and the 
"Holy Club" lost one of its members. 

Others, cajoled by flatteries, or weaned with 
the stern struggle necessary to resist the unceas- 
ing tide of ridicule, evil report, and emnity which 
flowed in upon them from every side, as from an 
exhaustless sea, also gave up the unequal strife — 
unequal because, with all their devotion, these 
young men had not gained that peace and power 
which comes from faith in Jesus only. Lacking 
this, when "the strokes of stalwart men fell fierce 
and fast," it need not surprise you to be told that 
few were found, like Wesley, to possess " the great 
heart that can not fear." 

But there were a few grand young souls 

whose unflinching courage nothing could subdue. 

Among these were the gentlemanly Morgan, who 

was speedily called from the scene of strife to be 

crowned in heaven ; the loving Charles Kinchin, 

who also was soon summoned to renew his sweet 
7 



g6 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

fellowship with his beloved Morgan, in the Celes- 
tial City ; the devoted James Hervey, who lived 
to delight the world with his beautifully written, 
though somewhat sentimental, " Meditations ;" the 
active Ingham, whose persuasive voice, in after 
years, won many to the cross ; and the eloquent 
Whitefield, whose unequaled oratory became the 
wonder of the Christian world, and the means of 
winning multitudes from evil to good. 

These good and true young men, with a few 
other equally brave spirits, continued to rally 
round John Wesley as their recognized chief. 
They, with his brother Charles, looked up to him 
for encouragement and guidance so long as he 
remained at Oxford. 

When Wesley was thirty-one years old, his re- 
vered father, feeling the weakness of age creeping 
on, besought him to become his successor, if pos- 
sible, in ths rectory at Epworth. There was much 
to be said in favor of this plan. It would gratify 
his father, enable his beloved mother to retain her 
Epworth home after her husband's decease, and 
give him a fair field for labor and usefulness. 



A FELLOW OF LINCOLN. 97 

Humanly speaking, it was a professional opening 
not to be despised. 

Mr. Wesley saw all its advantages. The fruit 
on the Epworth tree was pleasing to the eye. He 
declined it nevertheless. Why? Had he any 
better earthly prospects ? Not at that moment. 
What then ? Just this : he thought he could be 
more holy, and therefore more useful, at Oxford 
than at Epworth. For this reason only, he re- 
solved to remain, for the present, teaching* re- 
ligion and the classics to his pupils at Lincoln 
College. 

His relatives were much displeased with him, 
his brother Samuel especially ; but he stood firm 
to his purpose — though he seems to have yielded 
so far as to permit some of his friends to take 
some steps in his favor toward procuring the liv- 
ing — and, after his father's death, the rectorship 
passed forever from the W r esley family. 

One can scarcely help feeling that Wesley's 
relatives, with their light, were right in wishing 
John to become his father's successor. But now, 
with the light of his grand life shining upon the 



A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

circumstances, we can see that he did precisely 
right. Had he put his light under the Epworth 
"bushel/' the world would have suffered unspeak- 
able loss. His declination of Epworth Parish, 
though he knew it not at that time, was a step 
toward his induction into that grander parish 
which recognized no limits but those of the earth 
itself. Not Epworth, but the world, was to be 
John Wesley's parish. 

Wesley is now thirty-two years old. A letter 
from Epworth bids him and Charles hasten to the 
chamber where the good old rector, worn out by 
labors abundant and manifold infirmities, is wait- 
ing for the coming of the death-angel. The 
brothers obey the summons. They find their 
father mellow with age, and ripe for immortality. 
Standing by his bedside, they gaze with misty 
eyes upon his venerable face. 

" Do you suffer much, father ?" asks John, in 
tones of sympathy. 

Fixing his dim eyes steadfastly on his son, the 
dying man replies: 

"Yes: but nothing is too much to suffer for 



A FELLOW OF LINCOLN. 99 

heaven. The weaker I am in body, the stronger 
and more sensible support I feel from God." 

A day or two after, he places his trembling hand 
on the head of Charles, and says, prophetically: 

" Be steady ! The Christian faith will surely 
revive in this kingdom. You shall see it, though 
I shall not." 

"Are you near heaven ?" inquires John, shortly 
before his father's death. 

The face of the dying rector grows radiant 
with the light of hope, as he distinctly and firmly 
answers : 

"Yes, I am." 

"Are the consolations of God small with you, 
father ?" 

" No, no, no !" is the emphatic response. 

Then, after calling each of his children pres- 
ent by name, he adds: "Think of heaven, talk 
of heaven ! All the time is lost when we are not 
thinking of heaven." 

At last the hour of his departure strikes. John 
prays, while the other children kneel around the 
bed. Mrs. Wesley's intense feeling does not 



100 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

allow her to be present. The prayer is ended. 
With feeble voice, the rector whispers : 

"Now you have done all." 

Again the voice of John is heard commending 
the soul of his father to God. It ceases. The 
room is silent as the grave. They open their 
eyes, but the rector of Epworth is gone. His 
body is before them, clothed with the pale grand- 
eur of death ; he is with the Church of the first- 
born in heaven, beholding the matchless splen- 
dor of his Lord, and rapturously swelling the 
song of the Lamb, by whose precious blood he 
had been redeemed. Can any thing on earth 
be more beautiful than such a death ? It was, 
indeed, fitting that this tried, scarred Christian 
warrior should pass thus peacefully to his reward. 

The manner of his death brought comfort to 
his widow's heart, which had been so disturbed 
by the strain of separation from the husband of 
her youth and the father of her nineteen children, 
that she had fallen in a fit several times when in 
his sick-chamber. "Now," she exclaimed, "I am 
heard in his having so easy a death, and I am 



A FELLOW OF LINCOLN. lOI 

strengthened to bear it." How mighty are the 
consolations of our merciful God! 

You will be shocked to learn that, on the very 
day of the rector's modest funeral, a woman, to 
whom he owed about seventy-five dollars, seized 
his widow's cattle to secure the debt. It was a 
heartless deed, but characteristic of the rude boors 
who called themselves citizens of Epworth. Such 
a deed could not have found a perpetrator among 
a people cultivated by education, and softened by 
the influences of Christian love. John Wesley 
gave the greedy woman his note for the amount 
of the debt, and, after otherwise ministering to his 
mother's comfort, returned to Oxford. 

In' contrast with the Epworth woman's heart- 
lessness toward his mother, let us see how Mr. 
Wesley treated a poor girl, one cold day, at Ox- 
ford. She belonged to one of his schools and 
came to him, in a half-frozen state, for help. Her 
appearance, touched him deeply, as the sight of 
suffering always did, and he asked : 

" Have you nothing to wear but that linen 
gown ?" 



102 A WONDERFUL LIFF. 

" Sir, this is all I have/' replied the child. 

He gave her the small contents of his pocket, 
regretting that his funds were so low. As she 
left his room, his eye glanced at the pictures 
which adorned the walls. Immediately his con- 
science smote him — unjustly, it may be — and he 
said to himself: 

"Will thy Master say, 'Well done, good and 
faithful steward/ thou hast adorned thy walls with 
the money which might have screened this poor 
creature from the cold ! O, justice ! O mercy ! 
Are not these pictures the blood of this poor 
maid ?" 

I can not tell you whether he sold his pictures 
or not ; but I do know that this utterance was not 
a fitful gush of empty sentiment; for his charity 
at all times was only limited by his means. To 
help the poor was regarded by him and his fellow- 
laborers at Oxford as a cardinal duty. Wesley 
practiced it most rigidly. When his income was 
only one hundred and fifty dollars, he gave away 
ten 3 when it was three hundred, he gave away 
one hundred and sixty ; when it was four hundred 



A FELLOW OF LINCOLN. 103 

and fifty, he spent three hundred and ten in 
charity; and when it reached six hundred, he 
scattered four hundred and sixty among the poor 
and needy. This was rare charity. He con- 
tinued it to the end of his long life, as will be 
seen hereafter, always spending as little upon 
himself as possible, and taking rich pleasure in 
deeds of mercy, which emptied his purse, but 
gladdened sorrowful hearts. A more benevolent 
man never lived since the days of Him who 
went about dropping sweet charities among men, 
as the clouds drop their fatness on the earth. 





dlfaptef VI. 



FROM OXFORD TO SAVANNAH. 

|]Kl]Si|HE singular piety and remarkable charac- 
P^lW ter of Mr. Wesley now attracted the at- 
|§jfe£ tention of certain gentlemen interested 
* I ^ iii building up a colony in what is now 
the State of Georgia. A few months after his 
father's death, they invited him to become mis- 
sionary to the colonists and to the Indians in the 
neighborhood. He objected. They combated his 
objections so forcibly, that he finally consented, 
provided his aged mother, now largely dependent 
upon him, could be brought to favor it. Her 
reply was in the loftiest spirit of Christian hero- 
ism. Nobly disregarding her own needs, she said : 
" Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice to see 
them all so employed !" 

104 



FROM OXFORD TO SAVANNAH. IO5 

It was making a great sacrifice to quit the be- 
loved retirement of Oxford, with its sweet friend- 
ships and Church prospects, and to enter upon 
the hardships of missionary life in an infant 
colony. Yet Wesley cheerfully made it. He was 
still seeking, with all the ardor of a master pas- 
sion, to save his soul by acts of self-denial, by 
prayers, and by deeds of charity. Believing that 
the toils, perils, and sufferings of preaching to 
rude, colonists and savage Indians, would make 
him more acceptable to God, he now accepted 
the call in the spirit of a brave warrior girding 
himself for the battle. " My chief motive," he 
says, "is the hope of saving my own soul." For 
this grand end he was prepared to suffer even 
unto death. This was lofty spiritual heroism ; but 
he was singularly blind in supposing that he could 
achieve his glorious purpose by doing good works 
and trusting in them. Happily for him and the 
world, this trip to Georgia will help remove the 
scales from his eyes, and prepare him to see that 
his soul can not be saved by works, but only by 
simple faith in Jesus. 



106 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Imagine our earnest missionary, with his brother 
Charles — who goes as secretary to Governor Ogle- 
thorpe — his friend Ingham, and young Delamotte — 
a merchant's son, who, from pure love, accompa- 
nies him as his servant — on board the Simmonds. 
She is not a stately ship, like one of our modern 
swift-sailing clippers, nor a palatial steamship, but 
a clumsy, broad-beamed, slow-sailing vessel of 
that period, with no elegance, and few conven- 
iences for the comfort of even cabin passengers. 

But our great-hearted Wesley finds no fault. 
Luxurious appointments have no charms for his 
ascetic tastes. He even eschews much of the 
comfort he finds on the ship, and at once adopts 
all the strictness of his Oxford life. He and his 
companions eat sparingly, only twice a day, after 
they get fairly out to sea, living chiefly on rice 
and biscuit. No idleness is indulged in; but 
every waking moment is spent in hard study, in 
prayer, in spiritual conversation, in preaching or 
talking religion to their fellow-passengers, espe- 
cially those in the steerage. They make the ship 
a bethel, and every day a Sabbath. 



FROM OXFORD TO SAVANNAH. 107 

Their gravity and fidelity give offense to some 
of the cabin passengers, a few of whom begin 
treating them with improper levity. This rouses 
Governor Oglethorpe, who is very friendly with 
the Wesley brothers. He turns his leonine face 
toward the scoffers, and sharply asks : 

"What do you mean, sirs? Do you take these 
gentlemen for tithe-pig parsons? They are gen- 
tlemen of learning and respectability. They are 
my friends. Whoever offers any affront to them, 
insults me." 

Governor Oglethorpe was not a man to be 
trifled with. In his younger days he was secre- 
tary to Prince Eugene, in Germany, and while at 
his table, one day, a prince of Wiirtemberg threw 
a portion of a glass of wine in his face. 

"That's a good joke/' said young Oglethorpe, 
smiling, "but we do it much better in England." 

And with these words, he dashed a glass full 
of wine into the prince's face. 

The would-be scoffers at Mr. Wesley, on board 
the Simmonds, probably knew this anecdote con- 
cerning their reprover. At any rate, they ceased 



108 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

their le\ity, and treated the missionary and his 
little party with marked respect to the end of the 
voyage. 

But Wesley had no fear of this military lion, 
when duty required that he should confront him. 
Hearing the general in a high passion, one day, 
he steps into his cabin, and finds him fiercely be- 
rating his trembling Italian servant, who stands 
cowering and trembling in a corner. No sooner 
does Wesley show himself than the general, half 
ashamed of his own temper, says, by way of 
apology : 

"You must excuse me, Mr. Wesley. I have 
met with a provocation too great for man to bear. 
You know that I drink nothing but Cyprus wine. 
I provided myself with several dozens of it, and 
this villain, Grimaldi, has drunk nearly the whole 
of it. But I will be revenged. He shall be tied 
hand and foot, and carried to the man-of-war.' 1 
(A war-ship was sailing as convoy to the Sim- 
monds.) "The rascal should have taken care 
how he used me so \ for I never forgive." 

Fixing his penetrating eye on the exasperated 



FROM OXFORD TO SAVANNAH. IO9 

general, Mr. Wesley calmly replies, "Then I hope 
sir, you never sin !" 

This sharp rejoinder strikes hard on the gen- 
eral's conscience. He stands confounded a mo- 
ment or two, looking wonderingly at his faithful 
reprover. Then, taking a bunch of keys from his 
pocket, he throws them at the poor, cringing 
Grimaldi, exclaiming : 

"There, villain, take my keys; and behave 
better for the future !" 

This rebuke was a brave act. Probably no 
other man in that ship would have thus dared to 
beard the irascible soldier. But our Wesley had 
a lion heart. 

The Simmonds left Cowes in December, always 
a stormy season on the wide Atlantic. About the 
middle of January she encountered a very terrible 
gale. The seas ran very high. The winds roared 
furiously. An immense wave broke over the ship, 
swept her from stem to stern, dashed in her cabin 
windows, and carried away the main-yard. A week 
later, in a second gale, she shipped a sea which 
came very near sweeping Wesley overboard. Two 



IIO A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

days later, the wind blew a perfect hurricane. The 
ship rolled and rocked fearfully. The foaming 
waves, seething and boiling, seemed bent on her 
destruction. The air blazed with terrific sheets 
of lightning. A mighty wave, breaking over the 
deck, swept the " companion-way" into the sea, 
and the main-sail was torn into shreds. The 
hearts of many trembled with fear, lest they 
should find an untimely grave at the bottom of 
the angry deep. 

The gale was at its height at the hour of a 
vesper service, held every day by twenty-six Mo- 
ravians, who were going out as settlers in the new 
colony. Wesley, as usual, was among them. He 
observed that they were perfectly calm amid the 
roar of the elements, and that when their voices 
joined in the evening hymn, they rang out as 
round, as full, as joyous as they had in the stillest 
hours of the voyage. Evidently the prospect of 
instant death had no terrors for them. Many of 
the English passengers were screaming through 
fear. These pious Germans were joyfully waiting 
their fate. 



FROM OXFORD TO SAVANNAH. 1 1 1 

Wesley gazes with wonder at this beautiful 
spectacle of Christian triumph over the fear of 
death. His own heart is ill at ease, and shrink- 
ing from his probable contact with the mysteries 
of death. After the danger has passed, he asks 
one of these Moravians: 

"Were you not afraid ?" 

" I thank God, no !" replies the good man, 
wondering, probably, that a learned and godly 
minister should ask such a question. 

" But were not your women and children 
afraid?" persists Wesley. 

"No: our women and children are not afraid 
to die," is the triumphant rejoinder. 

Do you wonder that Wesley wrote in his 
Journal, that night, these significant words : 

"This was the most glorious day I had ever 
seen !" 

No doubt it was so, in more senses than one. 
It had not only shown him the grand moral spec- 
tacle of Christian faith triumphing over human 
fear, but it had begotten questionings within him- 
self as to whether his way of trying to save his 
8 



112 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

soul was not, after all, a mistaken one. Blessed 
questionings, these! They will cling to him and 
give him much unrest, but they will spur him at 
last into the true and living way. 

After fifty-five busy days spent in crossing the 
rough Atlantic, Wesley finds himself under the 
pines on the sunny banks of the Savannah River. 
The climate, the landscape, the sky, the little 
town, the trees, the birds, the Indians, are all 
clothed with the charms of novelty, tempting the 
curiosity of an intelligent stranger, and inviting 
him to observation or repose. But Wesley is 
dead to every thing except spiritual aims. He 
is scarcely landed, when, meeting with the Mora- 
vian elder, Spangenberg, he asks, as almost his 
first question : 

" How had I better act in this new sphere of 
labor?" 

Spangenberg, anxious, probably, to ascertain if 
this young Episcopal clergyman is a genuine dis- 
ciple of his Master, responds by this inquiry, 
which sorely puzzles our learned "Fellow of 
Lincoln :" 



FROM OXFORD TO SAVANNNAH. 113 

" My brother, I must first ask you one or two 
questions. Have you the witness within your- 
self? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with 
your spirit that you are a child of God ?" 

These are points beyond the present range of 
our young missionary's experience. He stands 
perplexed and silent. Spangenberg resumes : 

" Do you know Jesus Christ ?" 

This was more familiar language, and he 
replies : 

" I know he is the Savior of the world." 

"True/' rejoins the faithful elder, "but do you 
know he has saved you ?" 

This is leading him again beyond his experi- 
ence, and, with an uneasy spirit, he replies : 

" I hope he has died to save me." 

"Do you know yourself?" said the persistent 
Spangenberg. 

"I do," rejoined Wesley, somewhat evasively. 

This conversation satisfied neither party. It 
left the good Moravian in doubt respecting the 
spiritual standing of the handsome young English 
priest; it filled Wesley with fresh questionings 






114 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

respecting himself. These will trouble him sorely 
for a time, but will prove good seed at length, 
bringing forth fruit richer and sweeter than any 
that shall ever grow in the orange-groves of the 
sunny land in which they were begotten. 



dlikptef VII. 




MISSIONARY WORK IN GEORGIA, 

HE depth and toughness of Mr. Wesley's 
£.f; : J[|ff noble character are shown by the unwav- 
fe^> ering constancy with which he adhered to 
* I * his plan of life. His earnest soul desired 
no holidays, no respites from the ardor of her grand 
pursuit. Not even the careless, slipshod life of a 
new colony could charm him to laxity in practice, 
or to indulgence in even temporary repose. But 
as he had taken up the thread of his Oxford life 
the moment his feet pressed the deck of the. Sim- 
monds, so he continued it, from the very hour of 
his landing under the sweet-scented magnolias and 
fragrant pines of Savannah to the last moment of 
his brief missionary career in Georgia. 

US 



Il6 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

He began by holding a public service of prayer 
every morning and evening, by forming a society 
of congenial spirits, to meet three times a week 
for reading, singing, and prayer, by visiting his 
parishioners from house to house, and by cate- 
chising the children. 

On Sundays he held three public Sabbath 
services, besides a prayer-meeting in his own 
house at night. (At one time he held seven serv- 
ices.) He administered the communion every 
week, visited the sick constantly, and preached 
faithfully against "putting on gold and wearing 
costly apparel." He rebuked prevailing vices with 
unsparing fidelity, and insisted upon a routine of 
outward religious observances as strict as the one 
he had adopted for himself. In addition to all 
this, he made frequent visits to Fredrica and other 
neighboring settlements. He would have gone to 
the Indians; but that was deemed impossible at 
that time. On these journeys, he often waded 
rivers and streams, and crossed swamps over- 
flowed with water, walking afterward in his drip- 
ping garments. Sometimes he slept at night on 



MISSIONARY WORK. 117 

the bare ground, waking in the morning to find 
his body wet with dew, and, in Winter, his long 
and beautiful hair bound to the earth by chains 
of frost. He bore this hard service with heroic 
fortitude, and he never paused in his work. Lit- 
erally, his whole time was spent in seeking through 
such labors the great object of his life-passion — 
the salvation of his soul. 

The colonists, who were a motley collection of 
some five hundred persons, composed of poor 
debtors from England, criminals from Ireland, 
Scotch adventurers, with a sprinkling of German 
and French, did not relish these stern views of 
the claims of religion. They were at first deeply 
impressed by the unwonted earnestness and rare 
purity of their young minister. How could they 
help it? Such a character was a phenomenon in 
those days. But as they had no inclination to 
become anchorites, High Churchmen, or even 
spiritual Christians, they soon became restive, and 
then hostile. Some spoke lightly of his teaching; 
others said his sermons were satires intended to 
abuse his hearers; and still others exclaimed, "We 



1 1 8 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

are Protestants, but we don't know what you are." 
A stout virago in his parish carried her oppo- 
sition so far as to decoy him into her house, one 
day. There she threw him down, and, with her 
scissors, cut the long locks of auburn hair from 
one side of his head. He bore this rude insult 
with his accustomed meekness, and even appeared 
in the pulpit with his hair long on one side and 
short on the other. Those who sat on the short 
side, whispered to one another: 

"What a cropped head of hair the young par- 
son has !" 

Thus did Wesley receive the blessing of per- 
secution for righteousness' sake. 

Matters were made worse by his High Church 
practices. Among other things, he insisted on 
baptizing infants by dipping them in the font, 
and refused the sacrament to one person because 
he had not been baptized by an Epi-scopal min- 
ister ! Strange doings, these, for the man who 
in his after-life became the most liberal of Church- 
men! No wonder that, years afterward, when 
speaking of this portion of his ministry, he wrote : 



MISSIONARY WORK. I 19 

"Can any one carry High Church zeal higher 
than this? How welj have I been since beaten 
with mine own staff!" 

We scarcely wonder, therefore, that those un- 
godly colonists became angry with their godly 
minister, especially as his faithful rebukes were 
not tempered by such offers of forgiveness for sin 
through simple faith in the loving Redeemer as 
are authorized by the Gospel. Law, not love ; 
good works, instead of the "faith that sweetly 
works by love," were his favorite themes. Of 
course, such preaching could only disturb, without 
healing, the consciences of his hearers. It made 
them see their guilt, but failed to lead them to the 
Fountain of healing. 

Why did not Wesley preach present salvation 
through faith ? The reason was in himself. His 
struggling soul was still shrouded in mist on that 
subject. He was bravely striving to save his own 
soul by works, and consequently did not know 
that his own sins were pardoned. He was made to 
feel this keenly one day, during a terrific thunder- 
storm, of which he says : 



120 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

"This voice of God, too, told me I was not 
fit to die ; since I was afraid rather than desirous 
of it! O, when shall I wish to be dissolved and 
be with Christ?" 

The hour of. his triumph over the fear of death 
is not very distant, though he knows it not. Mean- 
while, being himself a servant only, he can only 
preach as a servant to his angry people. By and 
by he will be a son, and then we shall see him 
not merely giving offense to sinners, but, after 
wounding, leading them by thousands into the 
glorious liberty of the sons of God. 

Wesley loved children, and spared no pains in 
teaching them the love of Jesus. They loved him 
in return, and several of them became loving little 
disciples of his Lord. 

One day his young friend Delamotte went to 
him in great trouble. Said he : 

"Mr. Wesley, I am discouraged. Some of the 
boys in my school wear stockings and shoes, and 
the others none. The former ridicule the latter. 
I have tried to stop their uncourteous banter, but 
have failed." 



MISSIONARY WORK. 121 

"I can cure it," replied Mr. Wesley. "If you 
will take charge of my school next week, I will 
take charge of yours, and will try." 

The exchange was made. On Monday morn- 
ing, Wesley walked to the disturbed school bare- 
foot. The children gazed at the unwonted sight 
with wonder; but Wesley kept them closely to 
their work, and said nothing of their past miscon- 
duct. The example of their teacher gave prestige, 
to the barefooted boys. In fact, bare feet became 
the fashion ; and, before the week was out, the 
banterers left their shoes and stockings at home, 
and peace was restored to the school. 

Whether this method of training unruly boys 
was judicious, I am scarcely prepared to decide. 
The circumstances and habits of the colonists may 
have justified it. But the fact illustrates the in- 
genuity, the humility, and the simplicity of the 
great man's character. 

You will be interested to learn that while Wes- 
ley was at Savannah, he narrowly escaped mar- 
riage with a charming young lady, named Sophia 
Christiana Hopkey. She is described as a beau- 



122 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

tiful girl, elegant in person and manners, and well 
connected withal, but by no means fitted to be the 
wife of a man with whom the service of God was 
the ruling passion. She appears to have been 
fascinated at first with the beautiful person, gentle 
manners, and cheerful spirit of the young minis- 
ter, and began, shortly after his arrival, to seek 
his society. She introduced herself— the sly 
maiden — as a seeker of religion, which was a 
shrewd way, to say the least, of approaching him 
on his most accessible side. She next sought, his 
aid in acquiring the French language, thus show- 
ing a zeal for learning very pleasing to so schol- 
arly a man. When he was taken sick with fever, 
she insisted, with too slight regard for maidenly 
proprieties, on being his nurse by day and night. 
To gratify his known tastes, she laid aside her 
fashionable style of dress, and clothed herself in 
simple white. She resorted, in short, to every 
feasible method of laying seige to his noble and 
susceptible heart. 

Whether she really loved and desired to marry 
him, can not now be known. Some of Mr. Wesley's 



MISSIONARY WORK. 1 23 

friends thought she did not, but that her object 
was only to lure him from the strictness — fanat- 
icism, some of his colonial friends called it — of 
his religious life. They claimed that she was 
urged to bring him under her influence for this 
purpose by her uncle, Mr. Causton, the magistrate 
of Savannah, but a scurvy villain at heart. Gen- 
eral Oglethorpe, the governor, it was thought, en- 
couraged her, hoping she would marry the young 
ascetic, and tone down his religious life into some- 
thing like conformity to the common standard 
among Church people. Such a modification of 
his character would, in the general's opinion, have 
made Mr. Wesley a perfect minister. But the gen- 
eral's judgment was in this thing, most certainly, 
far, very far, from being perfect. 

However these things may have been, it is 
pretty clear that the elegant girl won the young 
priest's heart. He was often in her company, 
corresponded with her, escorted her from Fredrica 
to Savannah, and was so obviously a lover, that 
their intimacy became a topic of public remark. 

Young Delamotte, Wesley's friend and volunteer 



124 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

servant, perceiving how matters stood, and esti- 
mating the young lady's character at something 
like its real value, spoke slightingly of her, one 
day, and asked: 

"Do you mean to marry Miss Hopkey, Mr. 
Wesley?" 

Wesley gave an evasive answer. But the ques- 
tion startled him, and, with a simplicity bordering 
on folly, he submitted this delicate and purely 
personal matter to the decision of his Moravian 
friends. They advised him not to marry Sophia. 
His heart seems to have rebelled against their 
judgment, and he would probably have married 
her after all, if she had truly loved and clung to 
him. But she was either fickle or false, or both ; 
and when a frivolous young man, named William- 
son, proposed marriage, she accepted, and, four 
days after, married him. 

Wesley was, as he confessed, "pierced through 
as with a sword " by this sore disappointment. 
But it was a blessing in disguise. The woman 
was not worthy of a man of his high character and 
wonderful destiny. Their marriage might have 



MISSIONARY WORK. 125 

chilled the zeal that afterward made him the 
mighty spiritual reformer. Her religious mask 
fell off, shortly after her marriage, and Wesley felt 
it to be his painful duty to repel her from the 
communion-table. This official — probably un- 
wise — act led her friends to commence a fierce 
persecution, and finally to prosecute him in the 
courts. Then the voices of the wicked roared 
like strong lions against the unflinching reprover 
of their vices. Their persecution failed to spot 
his pure garments. But their emnity closed the 
doors of usefulness so fast against him, that he 
judged it best to quit the colony, and return to 
England, after having spent nearly two years of 
zealous, toil for those ungrateful colonists. 

His work at Savannah is done. He is on the 
ocean once more, teaching, preaching, writing, and 
praying, as he sails. On the 1st of February, 
1737, his feet are once more on his native soil, 
and his longing eyes are still fixed, with intense 
earnestness on the crown of life which he is still 
striving to win by vain attempts to keep God's 
perfect law. 



dl^tetf VIII. 




THE VICTORY OF FAITH. 

IHILE Wesley was sailing into port, the 
celebrated pulpit orator, George White- 
field was sailing down the British chan- 
nel on his way to Savannah. As this 
son of thunder was, for a time, intimately related 
to Wesley's work, it is proper that you should 
know something of his remarkable history. 

George Whitefield was the son of an innkeeper 
in the city of Gloucester. His early boyhood gave 
little promise of the rich spiritual fruit which his 
manhood bore in luxuriant clusters. When he 
was ten years old, a religious book touched his 
heart, and gave color to his future life. At the 
grammar-school of St. Mary de Crypt, where he 
prepared for college, he was noted for his rare 
126 



VICTORY OF FAITH. I 27 

power as a speaker and declaimer. When he was 
fifteen years old, his mother's reduced circum- 
stances compelled him to quit school and serve as 
pot-boy or drawer in her tavern. But hearing that 
he might go to college as a servitor — a student who 
earns his living by waiting on other students — he 
resumed his studies at the grammar-school ; en- 
tered Pembroke College, Oxford, when he was 
eighteen, and studied, prayed, and toiled with 
unwearied diligence. 

After some time, he was introduced to the Wes- 
leys, and became a member of the "Holy Club." 
Bitter persecution followed this step. The head 
of his college threatened to expel him, his fellow- 
students laughed at him, pelted him with dirt, 
and refused to pay him for the menial services he 
rendered some of them as servitor. But nothing 
could daunt his heroic soul. He clung to the holy 
brotherhood, fasted like an anchorite, prayed like 
a saint, and long before the Wesleys found peace 
with God, his soul laid hold upon Christ by simple 
faith, and was exceedingly happy. 

While the Wesleys were in Georgia, Whitefield 
9 



128 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

kept up the conflict at Oxford, until he was or- 
dained, at twenty-one years of age. He then be- 
gan preaching, — first at Gloucester, then at Bristol, 
afterward at London, with very startling spiritual 
effects. But a letter from Wesley, asking help for 
Georgia, led him to embark for that colony, and 
to sail, as stated above, a few hours before John 
Wesley landed at Deal. Like Wesley, he made 
the ship a bethel, and was so popular with some 
soldiers on board, that they stood up and suffered 
him to catechise them as if they were children. 

His rare eloquence captivated Wesley's old par- 
ishioners at Savannah. They crowded his church, 
and hung upon his lips with delight, during his 
brief stay of sixteen weeks. Two causes led to 
his speedy return to England: i. He wished to 
be ordained priest or elder ; 2. He wanted money 
with which to found an orphan's college in Georgia. 
We shall see him by and by, hand in hand with 
our Wesley, spreading the holy fire of a great 
awakening, from the mines of Cornwall to the 
Highlands of Scotland. 

Writing from Savannah, Whitefield said: "The 



VICTORY OF FAITH. 1 29 

good Mr. John Wesley has done in America, 
under God, is inexpressible. His name is very 
precious among the people." 

This testimony, from so competent a witness, 
shows you that Wesley's labors in Savannah were 
far from being fruitless, although he had seen 
little fruit while there. The people had learned 
from his absence the worth of his grand charac- 
ter, which they had previously lightly esteemed. 
Whitefield reaped the fruit of Wesley's labors. 

John Wesley is now thirty-five years of age. 
Thirteen years have passed since he began to 
seek the salvation of his soul, by trying to keep 
the law of God. These years have been spent in 
such earnest work as few men ever perform. His 
eye has been steadfastly fixed on the grand object 
of his pursuit. He has, with rare force of will, 
made every thing in and about him subserve his 
high purpose. Though uncertain of Divine favor, 
he has heroically persisted in doing the Divine 
will, so far as he has understood it. He has 
shrunk from nothing he thought right. Literally, 
his whole nature has been absolutely devoted 



13O A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

to the service of God. Noble, true-hearted man ! 
The end of his fierce strife is at hand, and 
we shall soon behold him flying, like a happy 
angel, over the land, wielding the sword of the 
Spirit with a vigor which will prove that the force 
which nerves his arm is more than mortal might. 

After landing in England, he proceeds to visit 
his friends in London and Oxford, preaching and 
exhorting continually. In the former city he 
meets with a good Moravian brother, named Peter 
Bohler. They talk of religion with burning hearts. 
Peter soon discovers that his learned friend is pre- 
vented from enjoying peace of mind because of 
certain errors of opinion; and, looking very 
tenderly into his serious face, he says feelingly : 

" My brother, my brother ! that philosophy of 
yours must be purged away." 

They part. Wesley thinks deeply on the ques- 
tions raised by Peter, until, going to Oxford, some 
days later, to see his brother Charles, who was 
supposed to be dying, he meets Peter Bohler again. 
Their conversation is renewed, until Wesley, with 
genuine humility, confesses : 



VICTORY OF FAITH. 131 

"I am clearly convinced of unbelief — of the 
want of that faith whereby alone we are saved.'' 

Then his high sensitive conscience smites him, 
and presses this question upon him : 

" You must leave off preaching. How can you 
preach to others, who have not faith yourself?" 

This inquiry troubles him, and, with his wonted 
openness, he states it to Peter, and asks : 

"Should I leave off preaching, or not?" 

With sound good sense, Peter rejoins : 

" By no means." 

" But what can I preach ?" urges the distressed 
Wesley. 

"Preach faith //// you have it ; and then, because 
you have it, you will preach faith." 

They separate. Wesley now preaches faith, in 
several parts of England, with all the vigor of a 
great mind intensely fired by an earnest heart. 
People are startled into thoughtfulness, but are 
not saved. He can, as yet, only lead them to the 
door, not through it. But meeting Bohler again, 
he is told that: 

"Dominion over sin, and constant peace from a 



132 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

sense of forgiveness, attend the exercise of saving 
faith." 

He is amazed at this statement. He has nevei 
supposed that a sense of forgiveness was his priv- 
ilege. But he promises to search for the doctrine 
in his Greek Testament. He does this with much 
prayer. Light breaks in upon his mind; and 
when he meets Peter, a month later, he confesses 
to have found the blessed doctrine in the Sacred 
Word, very much to his friend's satisfaction, and 
to the increase of his own hopes. 

And now Peter renews his astonishment, by 
declaring that the blessing of pardon and of a 
new heart is graciously given to a penitent the 
moment he trusts in Christ. 

" Impossible ?" cries the still incredulous Wesley. 

" Search the Scriptures, and see," replies Bohler. 

Again is our scholar confounded by the simple 
Word of God. He finds scarcely any other than 
instantaneous conversions recorded in the sacred 
page. He frankly confesses this, but adds : 

"Thus, I grant, God wrought in the first ages 
of Christianity ; but the times are changed. What 



VICTORY OF FAITH. 1 33 

reason have I to believe he works in the same 
manner now?" 

This question is answered by the introduction 
of several living witnesses, who say to him : 

" God gave us such a faith as translated us, in 
a moment , out of darkness into light, out of sin 
and fear into holiness and happiness." 

This testimony settles the question, and he 
exclaims : 

"Here my disputing ends. I can only cry out, 
'Lord, help thou my unbelief!'" 

Acting under Peter's advice, while still eagerly 
praying for this faith, he preaches his new views 
of it and of its instant effects. His intimate 
friends, including his brother Charles, take offense. 
Churches are closed against him. Excitement 
spreads wherever he goes. But the doctrine soon 
begins to cut its own way, like a sword of heav- 
enly temper. Souls begin to experience the sweet 
fruits of faith — among them his brother Charles. 
But poor John is still harassed by perplexities of 
mind, downcast in spirit. But he heroically keeps 
up the struggle, praying every moment: 



1 34 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

" Lord, give me a full reliance on the blood of 
Christ, shed for me; a trust in him as my Christ, 
as my sole justification, sanctification, and re- 
demption." 

It is now the 24th of May, 1738. At five in 
the morning, he opens his Greek Testament, and 
these words meet his eye : 

" There are given unto us exceeding great and 
precious promises, even that ye should be partakers 
of the Divine nature." 

This encourages him. On going out, he opens 
his Testament again, and is comforted by the 
words, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of 
God." 

In the afternoon he attends Divine service at 
St. Paul's, where the anthem encourages his hopes. 
In the evening he goes to a little society meeting, 
in Aldersgate Street. Behold him seated, with 
sad expression, among a few poor, earnest seekers 
of his Lord, listening to a man reading Luther's 
Preface to the Epistle to the Romans ! About a 
quarter before nine, the speaker describes the 
change which God works in the heart through 



VICTORY OF FAITH. 1 35 

faith. Wesley's prayer for faith now becomes the 
breathing of faith. In a moment his heart is 
"strangely warmed," and sends up a spontaneous 
prayer for his enemies — the first gush of the love 
begotten in him by the Holy Spirit. Very soon 
the speaker stops. Wesley rises, his face radiant 
with heavenly light, and says : 

" I now, for the first time, feel in my heart that 
I trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation. I 
have an assurance that he has taken away my sins, 
even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and 
death !" 

Thus, at last, did the dove of heaven descend 
with the olive-leaf of peace, to comfort and heal 
this great man's heart, which was scarred with 
wounds received in a spiritual battle continued, 
with unflinching courage, through thirteen long 
years. But the victory was worth all its cost, and 
immeasurably more ; for what is all the wealth, 
glory, and pomp of earth, compared with that 
peace which God had now given him ? 

Wesley's victory was not yet complete. He 
had peace, but not joy; he had dominion over 



136 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

himself, but he had to win it through fierce temp- 
tations. His hand was on the cross, but his grasp 
was feeble, like that of a babe in Christ. He 
longed for the mature strength of a man in Christ 
Jesus. Nothing less than the fullness of the 
Gospel promise would satisfy his great soul. 

His beloved and wise friend, Peter Bohler, had 
sailed for America ; and Wesley, longing for coun- 
sel, turned his eager eyes toward Peter's friends, 
among the Moravian settlements in Germany. 
Thither, therefore, he journeyed. He spent sev- 
eral weeks among that godly but singular, and 
in some respects mistaken, people, seeking the 
confirmation of his faith and the solution of his re- 
maining doubts. Their preaching and conversa- 
tion did him much good. He grew in grace rap- 
idly, and returned to England in the Autumn, 
strong in God, and prepared for that great battle 
with a dead Church and wicked world, which he 
carried on with peerless courage and wonderful 
success to the end of his days. 



Cl^tetf IX. 




FIRST FRUITS OF HIS NEW-BORN FAITH. 

fERETOFORE, we have seen our illustrious 
founder toiling for the good of others, in 
r^a the spirit of a servant hoping to gain his 
Master's favor by burdensome services. 
Hereafter we shall see him working in the spirit 
of a glad son, offering his manifold labors at his 
beloved Father's feet, as tokens of his gratitude, 
as the rich fruits of his trust for salvation in 
Jesus only. 

This fruitful faith did not increase the quantity 
of his labors. That was impossible. But it im- 
proved their quality vastly. Formerly, his sermons 
offended many, but saved very few. Now, their 
power over men's consciences is so intensified 
that people are mightily awakened, and cry to 

137 



138 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

God for mercy wherever he preaches. That mem- 
orable hour in which he felt his heart "strangely 
warmed," had been to him a Pentecostal season — 
the beginning of that constant baptism of heav- 
enly fire which burned with even flame, and made 
him a man of power to the end of his days. 
Blessed baptism ! May it descend on the reader, 
and make him a burning and shining light in the 
Church of God forever! 

" Sir, you must preach here no more." 
Such is the sentence pronounced, by minister 
and warden, in church after church, as our Wes- 
ley descends from the pulpit, until there remains 
scarcely a church open to his ministrations, in 
London or its vicinity. His searching denuncia- 
tions of sin, his clear views of simple faith, his 
doctrines of instantaneous conversion and the 
witness of the Spirit, his intense earnestness, and 
the startling effects produced on his hearers, give 
sore offense to sleepy wardens and dead ministers. 
And in those days a majority of Church minis- 
ters knew as little of the spirit of piety as the 
boards of the pulpits from which they droned their 



FIRST FRUITS. 1 39 

lifeless sermons to congregations, composed, in 
the main, of persons who, like themselves, were 
ignorant of the power of godliness, being " dead 
in trespasses and sins." 

These rebuffs w r ould have shamed a man of 
feeble purpose into silence. But Wesley's calm 
courage is more than equal to the occasion. He 
may be shut out of churches ; but all England 
can not silence him, except by depriving him of 
liberty or life. Prisons, almshouses, cottages, and 
the rooms of the "religious societies," are open 
to him, and in them he proclaims the "Word of 
Life " with wondrous power. 

These "religious societies" were small gather- 
ings of godly people who met to pray, sing, read 
the Scriptures, help one another, and to devise 
works of charity. They had existed in London, 
and many other places, for more than half a cent- 
ury. Their members welcomed our exile from 
church pulpits to their rooms, and in them the 
Lord wrought marvelous things among the un- 
godly, who crowded to hear him and his brother 
Charles. 



14O A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Whitefield had now returned from Georgia, to 
beg money for a projected orphan-house in that 
colony. After a short stay in London, he went to 
Bristol. There the " chancellor " forbade him to 
preach within the diocese, without a license, on 
pain of expulsion from the ministry. Whitefield, 
like his friend Wesley, had a lion's heart. He 
would not be wrongfully gagged by ecclesiastical 
authority. Save souls he would; regularly if per- 
mitted, irregularly if necessary. Hence, he re- 
solved on what was, in those days, and in his 
circumstances, a very bold step. He would preach 
in the open air! 

Looking about him for a suitable place to be- 
gin this unchurchly but Christ-like deed, he saw 
Kingswood, — once a royal hunting-ground, where 
noble knights and courtly dames pursued the wily 
fox or timid deer; but now a spot honey-combed 
with coal-mines, and inhabited by crowds of rough, 
hard men, of brutal habits, and fearless alike of 
God or man. None cared for their souls. Dainty 
Churchmen, living at their ease in richly endowed 
parishes, like priest and Leyite in the road to 



FIRST FRUITS. 141 

Jericho, looked scornfully on those poor, spirit- 
ually wounded, and imbruted colliers, and "passed 
by on the other side." To them Whitefield now 
determined to preach the glorious Gospel of love 
and purity. 

Behold him going out, on a cold day in Feb- 
ruary, among these almost savage miners. Stand- 
ing upon an eminence, unprotected save, by invis- 
ible powers, his clear, far-reaching voice is raised 
in prayer, in sermon, and in song. Two hundred 
souls come together, and listen in gloomy silence. 
What that silence may portend, the orator can 
not tell. But resolved to go forward, with more 
than knightly courage, he appoints a second serv- 
ice. Two thousand people gather around him, 
and hang upon his lips. He is encouraged, and 
goes again and again. At his fifth service, ten 
thousand souls are present, and on many a coal- 
stained face the white channels, formed by run- 
ning tears, assure the preacher that God is using 
him as a hammer to break those rocky hearts in 
pieces. 

At this unwonted spectacle, his soul takes fire. 



142 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

He preaches with mighty power, not at Kings- 
wood only, but at other points in and about Bris- 
tol. In one place his congregation covers three 
acres of ground, and numbers twenty thousand 
souls ! The scene is awful. Profound silence 
obtains throughout the vast throng. The clear 
voice of the preacher lines the hymn. The tune 
is raised, and taken up by the crowd from front 
to rear, until the singing becomes as the voice 
of many waters. During the sermon, every sound 
is hushed but the voice of the eloquent preacher, 
ringing soft, yet clear and strong, to the very out- 
skirts of the grand assembly. As he proceeds, 
the people are subdued. Every heart is melted 
and every face drenched with tears. So solemn 
is the spectacle that, at times, the preacher him- 
self is overcome, and can scarcely proceed with 
his discourse. Truly, as one observed, the Divine 
fire was kindled in the country, The grand re- 
vival which was to shake all England was fairly 
begun. 

Meanwhile Wesley was producing remarkable 
results by his preaching in London, though, as 



FIRST FRUITS. 143 

yet, in narrower spheres than these monster as- 
semblies. The power of God rested on his hear- 
ers so mightily that many often "cried for exceed- 
ing joy, and many fell to the ground." On one 
occasion, awe and amazement at the presence of 
the Divine Majesty held them, as if spell-bound, 
for a season, when, as with one voice, the company 
exclaimed : 

"We praise thee, O God; we ackowledge thee 
to be the Lord !" 

One evening, while Wesley is speaking, a woman 
cries out in anguish of spirit, as if in the agonies 
of death. He asks her to visit him the next day. 
She does so, and on being questioned, replies : 

"Three years ago I was under conviction for 

sin, and in such terror that I had no comfort in 

any thing, nor any rest day or night. I sent for 

my minister, and told him my distress. He told 

my husband that' I was stark mad, and advised 

him to send for a physician. He did so. The 

physician came, bled and blistered me, but gave 

me no relief. I continued in my distress until 

last evening, when He whose word is ' sharper 
10 



144 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

than any two-edged sword/ gave me a faint hope 
that he would heal my soul." 

A few days later, he is present with a lady 
who opposes this "new way" as she calls his doc- 
trines, with rage and bitterness. After talking 
awhile, he says to her: 

"Come, madam, let us join in prayer." 

She consents, and kneels down. Wesley prays. 
She is soon thrown into a great agony of body 
and soul. He prays on until she interrupts him, 
exclaiming earnestly and joyfully : 

"Now I know I am forgiven for Christ's sake!" 

Such incidents as these, constantly occurring, 
draw crowds to the meetings wherever Wesley 
appears. Public attention is aroused. The great 
revival is beginning in London as well as in Bristol. 

Feeling anxious to proceed with his plan of 
raising funds for his Georgia orphan-house, White- 
field now writes to London, inviting Wesley to 
visit Bristol, and carry on the good work begun 
there. This is an important call. How will 
Wesley answer it ? 

At this time Wesley belonged to a religious 



FIRST FRUITS. 145 

society which met in Fetter Lane, and was com- 
posed largely of Moravians. Its rules required 
that a member, before taking a journey, should 
consult his brethren. Accordingly, Wesley asked 
his band, Shall I go to Bristol? Unable to agree, 
after much disputation, they resorted to sortilege, 
or the lot. And the lot said, "Go." 

Before this, however, Wesley and his brother 
had tried to settle the question by appealing to the 
Oracles of God. Opening the Bible at random, 
they took the first text which met the eye, as God's 
answer to their inquiry. In this case, through sev- 
eral trials, every text seemed adverse, and even 
threatening. And such was the faith of both 
brothers, at that time, in this method of ascertain- 
ing the Divine will, that, after the lot had been 
drawn and Wesley had determined to go, Charles 
felt "an unaccountable fear that it would prove 
fatal to him," and John himself left London feel- 
ing like a warrior departing to encounter the un- 
known dangers of the battle-field, with a presenti- 
ment of evil in his heart. 

This practice of seeking answers from God in 



I46 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

chance texts of Holy Writ, was not peculiar to the 
Wesleys. Many good people have followed it in 
the past, and a few do it even now. It is not to be 
commended. There is no authority for it in the 
Scriptures. It smacks of superstition, and is quite 
as apt to mislead the inquirer as to guide him 
aright. That Wesley resorted to it in the early 
part of his career, is no proof that it is right. Like 
his High Church notions and his false views of 
faith, this is a little spot upon his otherwise brill- 
iant sun — a venial fault, which he threw off when 
he grew older, and stood forth in the full strength 
of his wonderful character. 

Wesley is shocked, on arriving at Bristol, to find 
that his eloquent friend, Whitefield, has adopted 
the "strange way of preaching in the fields." His 
sense of " decency and order " is wounded. Nev- 
ertheless, he goes to one of these grand out-door 
services the following Sunday. The solemn spec- 
tacle impresses him favorably. What he sees 
among the grateful colliers, who gave Whitefield 
an ovation on the day of his departure, mollifies 
him still more. Happening the next day to select 



FIRST FRUITS. 1 47 

a text from our Lord's beautiful Sermon on the 
Mount, it occurs to him that this sermon afforded 
a remarkable precedent for field-preaching. With 
this thought, his last prejudice melts like an icicle 
in an April sun. He once held the "saving of 
souls almost a sin if not done in the church ;" 
but now the example of his Master conquers his 
church pride. Submitting "to be more vile" than 
ever in the eyes of haughty prelates, clerical for- 
malists, and respectable Pharisees, he ascends an 
eminence just outside of Bristol, and preaches 
Christ to three thousand eager listeners. 

That second day of April, 1739, was a mem- 
orable day in our Wesley's life. It marked an 
epoch in his remarkable career, by introducing 
him to a practice, without which he could nev.er 
have achieved the great work of his life. It 
taught him that, though exiled from temples con- 
secrated by human lips, he could preach to Eng- 
land's hosts of spiritually dead souls in the great 
temples of nature, which were consecrated from 
the beginning to all holy purposes by the Maker 
of all things. It saw him unconsciously taking 



I48 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

a step toward the formation of an evangelical 
body, which, in the providence of God, was des^ 
tined to spread Scriptural holiness through many 
lands. 

Wesley has now crossed the Rubicon. What 
is before him he does not know. We shall soon 
behold him carrying the battle into the very 
strongholds of old England's sin. 

Very shortly after Wesley's arrival in Bristol, 
extraordinary effects begin to attend his ministra- 
tions. Men and women are so powerfully wrought 
upon that they " cry out aloud with the utmost 
vehemence, even as in the agonies of death." 
Others are "seized with strong pain, and con- 
strained to roar for disquietness of heart." Still 
others are taken with "a violent trembling all 
over, and in a few minutes sink to the ground." 
At some of his meetings many are struck to the 
earth suddenly, "as thunderstruck." One day a 
Quaker who bitterly condemned these manifesta- 
tions, drops down " as if he had been struck by 
lightning. The agony he is in is terrible to be- 
hold." Another man, named John Haydon, a 



FIRST FRUITS. 149 

weaver of excellent reputation, but who has de- 
nounced these singular operations as delusions of 
the devil, is seated in his own house, one day, 
reading a sermon. Suddenly he changes color, 
falls off his chair, beats himself severely against 
the floor, and screams so terribly that the neigh- 
bors are alarmed, and rush into the house. Some 
one sends for Wesley, saying: 

" John Haydon has fallen raving mad !" 

Wesley hastens to the house, where he. finds a 
room-full of people, and two or three men holding 
the excited weaver, as he screams to his wife, who 
had been trying to clear the room : 

"Let all the world see the just judgment of 
God !" 

Wesley edges his way through the awe-stricken 
crowd. The prostrate man no sooner sees him 
than he stretches out his hand, crying: 

"Ay, this is he who I said was the deceiver of 
the people ! But God has overtaken me. I said 
it was all a delusion ; but this is no delusion.'' 

And then he roars : " O thou devil, thou cursed 
devil ! yea, thou legion of devils ! thou canst not 



150 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

stay ! Christ will cast thee out ! I know his work 
is begun ! Tear me to pieces, if thou wilt, but thou 
canst not hurt me I" 

After this strange utterance, he beats himself 
upon the ground, his breast heaves as if the pangs 
of death were upon him, and great drops of sweat 
trickle down his haggard face. 

Wesley proposes prayer; and kneels, surrounded 
by the almost breathless crowd. Scarcely does he 
commence wrestling with God, before the man's 
pangs cease. His soul and body are suddenly 
"set at liberty." ' * 

And this is the usual result of these remarka- 
ble paroxysms. The prayers of Wesley and his 
men of faith prevail to bring their subjects rest in 
Jesus, after their mighty awakening by the Spirit 
of God. 

What shall we say of these violent exercises 
of body and mind ? Mr. Wesley calls them " signs 
and wonders." He believed that they came from 
God, because they were generally followed by the 
sound conversion of their subjects. Said he to 
those who caviled at them as fanatical delusions: 



FIRST FRUITS. 151 

" I will show him that was a lion till then, and 
now is a lamb ; him that was a drunkard, and is 
now exemplarily sober ; the whoremonger that 
was, who now abhors the garments spotted by the 
flesh." 

While such glorious facts reconciled Wesley to 
these phenomena, they did not satisfy either his 
friends or his enemies. Most of the former, in- 
cluding even his brothers Charles and Samuel, 
with his fellow-laborer, Whitefield, condemned 
them, and blamed him for permitting them. The 
latter were loud in their censures. They attrib- 
uted them to the devil, or to nervous affections 
caused by the preacher's rare magnetic power. 

Whatever we may think of these "signs and 
wonders," we may be sure their philosophy, as 
given by Wesley's enemies, was false. If his 
magnetic power produced them, w.hy did they oc- 
cur principally at Bristol, and rarely elsewhere ? 
Why not wherever he preached? If Satan caused 
them, he must have been exceedingly short-sighted, 
inasmuch as they contributed powerfully to the 
overthrow of his own kingdom. We know that 



152 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

most of their subjects became decided converts 
to his Master, and that their existence gave Wes- 
ley and his work a national notoriety, thereby mov- 
ing thousands to hear a man whose ministrations 
had been attended with such wonders. Was Satan 
fool enough to help pull down his own kingdom 
thus? 

It should be kept in mind that similar exer- 
cises accompanied the great revival in New Eng- 
land, under Edwards, ten years before they were 
experienced at Bristol. They were present in 
Wales, where, for three years, Howell Harris had 
been thundering, like a giant, at the gates of Beel- 
zebub. They also characterized the wonderful 
revival among the Presbyterians in Scotland, the 
year following Mr. Wesley's labors in Bristol. 
And they have occurred, occasionally, at various 
periods of the history of the Church, both- before 
and since. Is it not safe, therefore, to infer that 
our merciful God vouchsafes them when the ex- 
treme wickedness and skepticism of a nation re- 
quire some extraordinary displays of spiritual 
power to rouse it from its slumber on the brink 



FIRST FRUITS. 1 53 

of destruction? Holding this view, we think they 
should not be sought after, because of their tend- 
ency to fanaticism. God alone can determine 
when the world needs them. But when they do 
appear unsought, as in Wesley's case, they should 
be improved with cautious wisdom. Then let 
infidels and dead professors scoff, if they choose ; 
but let my young reader beware how he draws the 
bow and directs the arrow of ridicule at them, 
lest, haply, he be found fighting against God. 

While witnessing the conquests of Christ over 
the rude colliers at Kingswood and the working- 
men of Bristol, Wesley resolved to carry the good 
tidings to the neighboring city of Bath, at that 
time the chief seat of England's fashion. Bath 
had a king of its own, in the person of a noted 
gamester, named Richard Nash, or Beau Nash, as 
he was commonly called. This conceited fellow, 
now sixty-five years of age, had been expelled from 
Christ Church College in his youth for immoral 
conduct. At Bath he had become " master of the 
ceremonies " at the public balls. He made rules 
for those occasions, which not even royalty itself 



154 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

dared to break. He appointed the fashions of the 
hour. He was an exquisite in dress. When he 
traveled, his carriage was drawn by six gray 
horses, with postillions, outriders, footmen, and a 
band of French horns. With singular oddity, he 
wore an enormous white hat. 

When this impudent ruler over the realm of 
fashion heard that Wesley was to preach in Bath, 
he openly declared that he would put him down. 
Knowing his imperious habits, and his influence 
among the rich, Wesley's tried friends said : 

"Mr. W T esley, you had better not attempt to 
preach. Iteau Nash will break up your meeting." 

But the man who had stood up for Jesus be- 
fore the frowning dignitaries of Oxford and the 
dusty giants of the Kingswood mines, was not the 
man to quail before an empty-headed dandy. As 
might be expected, Wesley treated his threats 
with scorn, went to the place appointed, found a 
very large congregation, and calmly proceeded 
with his services. 

The sermon is just begun when the Beau, 
with his big white hat on his head, marches, with 



FIRST FRUITS. 155 

the strut of a stage-king, close up to Mr. Wesley, 
and haughtily asks: 

"By what authority do you dare to hold this 
service ?" 

" By the authority of Jesus Christ, conveyed to 
me by him who is now Archbishop of Canterbury/' 
replies Wesley, with quiet dignity. 

"But this is a conventicle, and contrary to act 
of Parliament, " rejoined Nash. 

" No. Conventicles are seditious meetings ; 
but here is no sedition : therefore it is not contrary 
to act of Parliament." 

"I say it is," retorts the King of Bath, pet- 
tishly ; " and, besides, your preaching frightens 
people out of their wits." 

"Sir," asks Wesley, "did you ever hear me 
preach ?" 

"No." 

" How, then, can you judge of what you have 
never heard?" 

"I judge by common report." 

" Common report is not enough. Give me leave 
to ask you, sir, is not your name Nash ?" 



156 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

"It is," replies the puzzled master of cere- 
monies. 

" Sir," Wesley retorts, with emphasis, " I dare 
not judge of you by common report." 

This home-thrust at the gambler's evil reputa- 
tion confounds him. He stands silent awhile, be- 
fore the tittering audience, which doubtless enjoys 
his confusion. Then, rallying himself, he looks on 
the congregation, and asks: 

"I desire to know what this people comes here 
for?" 

Before Mr. Wesley can reply, an old woman's 
cracked voice is heard saying : 

"You, Mr. Nash, take care of your body; we 
take care of our souls ; and for the food of our 
souls we come here." 

The crest-fallen King of Bath is still dumb. 
With sealed lips and ill-concealed vexation, he 
walks away. Wesley finishes his sermon. His 
calm courage and ready wit have covered the lord 
of fashion with shame and confusion of face. 

This incident is, in its spirit, a representative 
one. Beau Nash had the sympathies of tens of 



FIRST FRUITS. I 57 

thousands of Churchmen and Dissenters in his 
open hostility to Wesley, who was, at this time, 
like a lamb in the midst of ravening wolves. Rude, 
vile men frequently tried to break up his meetings. 
Ministers of high repute wrote bitter pamphlets de- 
nouncing him and his associates as Papists, Jesuits, 
mad dogs, enthusiasts, enemies of the Church, and 
disturbers of the public pe^ce. The magazines of 
the day took up the persecuting cries, misrepre- 
sented him and his doctrines, exaggerated the 
" signs and wonders " attending his work, and did 
their utmost to prejudice the public. 

But none of these things moved our noble 
founder. He preached on — now at Bristol, then 
at London, and in such other cities as had in them 
friends bold enough to invite his presence. Wher- 
ever he went, sinners were saved. Moved by the 
promptings of his now mighty faith, working by 
heavenly love, he toiled incessantly, as unmoved 
by the roar of his persecutors as is the solid rock 
by the mad waves which dash in powerless rage 
at its feet. 

About this time (September, 1739), the good 



158 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

widow of the rector of Epworth delighted her two 
sons, John and Charles, by telling the former that 
for the first time in her long life, she knew God, 
for Christ's sake, had forgiven her all her sins. It 
was a blessed experience for that elect lady. 

This sounds strangely, now that even our chil- 
dren know that the testimony of God's Spirit to 
the forgiveness of one's- sins is given to every one 
who trusts in the Lord Jesus alone for salvation. 
In her day, few understood these sweet doctrines, 
and of those who did, most supposed that it was 
the privilege of only very few persons to enjoy 
such a blessed experience. Let us be thankful 
that we live in an age of spiritual light, and let us 
be grateful to our Heavenly Father for enabling 
our good and great Wesley so to teach and diffuse 
these glorious doctrines, that they are not likely to 
be ever again lost sight of in the Christian world. 



C^kptef X. 



SEVERAL FIRST THINGS. 



||WW||HE well-known proverb, "Man proposes, 
; : A but God disposes," is illustrated very re- 
^||ngir markably by Wesley's career. The end he 
* f' proposed to himself, after finding repose for 
his soul through faith in Christ, was the quicken- 
ing of his beloved Church of England. The 
height of his ambition was, to be instrumental in 
leading the ministers and congregations of that 
venerable body back to the pure faith and evan- 
gelical experience of the Reformers. The organ- 
ization of a separate Church was neither in his 
thoughts nor his desires. When warned, by friend 
and foe, that such would be the result of his " ir- 
regular " labors, he strongly resented the prediction. 
When the tendency became apparent, he did his 
ii 159 






l60 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

best to check it by strictly attending Church serv- 
ices, the communion especially; by urging his 
followers to imitate his example, and by refusing, 
for years, to hold his own meetings during the 
hours of Church worship. He clung to his orig- 
inal purpose with the grip of a giant, and became 
an old man before he accepted the idea that the 
Methodists could preserve and extend the work 
which he had begun, only by becoming a separate 
people. 

But the great Disposer of events led him, by a 
way he knew not, to take steps, very early in his 
evangelical career, which ended in the construction 
of that stately spiritual edifice called Methodism. 
Its commencement was in this wise : 

The converts in Bristol multiplied until a room 
for their meetings became a necessity. Wesley 
then selected a suitable spot of ground. A bar- 
gain was made for its purchase. Trustees were 
appointed to take the title. But the people being 
too poor to raise the purchase money among them- 
selves, Wesley wrote to Whitefield, his brother 
Charles, and other friends in London, for assistance. 



FIRST THINGS. l6l 

"We will not assist you," replied those friends, 
" unless you destroy the trustship and become sole 
proprietor yourself. If trustees hold it, you will 
be under their control. Unless your preaching 
pleases them, they will eject you from the house 
you propose to build." 

This was unanswerable. The trustees dissolved. 
Wesley took the title, directed the building of the 
chapel, and begged money for its completion. He 
thus, as you can readily see, beoame master of the 
situation in Bristol. By pursuing this same course 
elsewhere, as chapels multiplied, he held his soci- 
ety with a firm grip. But, after a short time, he 
vested the titles to all his chapels in trustees, re- 
serving to himself, and his brother after him, the 
right of controlling their pulpits. This gave him 
great power in time — too much to be intrusted 
to one man ordinarily; but our Wesley was not 
an ordinary man. His high sense of honor and 
his rare conscientiousness made it next to im- 
possible for him to act with intentional injustice. 
He never abused his great trust, but employed it 
faithfully in building up a spiritual people. When 



1 62 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

his end drew nigh, he honorably conveyed it to 
the Wesleyan Conference in his famous " Deed 
of Declaration." 

There was a ruinous old building in London, of 
great extent, which for nearly a quarter of a cent- 
ury had been falling into decay. It had formerly 
been used by the Government for casting cannon. 
While the guns taken from the French, at Blen- 
heim, by the victorious Marlborough, were being 
recast within its walls, an explosion took place ; 
the roof was blown off, the timbers badly shaken, 
and several workmen killed and wounded. From 
that time it had no occupant, until Wesley used 
it as a preaching-place. The manner in which he 
was led to do this is, to say the least, curious. To 
speak more correctly, it was providential. He had 
gone up from Bristol, to raise money for his chapel, 
probably, when two unknown gentlemen called 
upon him, and said: 

"Mr. Wesley, we very much wish you would 
preach in the old foundry, near Moorfields." 

Wesley questioned them, but would not accept 
their invitation. They called on him again and 



FIRST THINGS. 1 63 

again, until, overcome by their persistence, he 
reluctantly consented. 

Such was his fame, even at that period, that 
five thousand souls gathered to hear him at eight 
o'clock in the morning. At five in the evening 
this vast number was swelled to nearly eight 
thousand ! 

This was success indeed. The gentlemen then 
pressed him to buy "the vast, uncouth heap of 
ruins." He finally consented ; purchased it for a 
little less than six hundred dollars, fitted it up 
with galleries, society-room, preacher's house, 
school, and band-room. Its entire cost was about 
four thousand dollars. As at Bristol, Wesley as- 
sumed all the responsibility, took the title, and 
thus became the owner of the first Methodist 
chapel in London, and the second in all England. 
And this, you see, not out of a purpose originating 
in his own mind, but from the persausion of two 
gentlemen, then unknown. Can you fail to see 
the mysterious leadings of God in thus providing 
a cradle for London Methodism? 

The cradle was prepared ; where was the child ? 



1 64 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

The first Methodist Society was not as yet organ- 
ized. Thus far, Wesley had belonged to a relig- 
ious society composed largely of Moravians, meet- 
ing in Fetter Lane. But these Moravians soon 
began to depart from the truth. Bickerings broke 
out among them, to the injury of the work. Some 
of them became Mystics, teaching unscriptural no- 
tions respecting the union of believing souls with 
God. Others were Qtiietists, who believed in wait- 
ing on God silently, and neglecting the means of 
grace. Wesley tried, with loving earnestness, to 
bring his erring brethren back to the truth. They 
resented his endeavors, censured him bitterly, and 
finally expelled him from the pulpit in Fetter Lane. 
He protested against their errors, and withdrew 
from their society, with some seventy-five others, 
whom he organized into a society, under his own 
supervision, at the foundry, on the 23d of July, 
1740. It seems that he had previously met a few 
serious people in London, at their own request, 
for religious conversation and prayer • but this was 
the germinal society of Wesleyan Methodism. It 
grew rapidly, until now, in a little more than a 



l. i- . ■. AW— -.Hi'!?; i 




CHARLES WESLEY AND THE ARCHBISHOP. 



FIRST THINGS. 165 

century and a quarter, it has become a goodly tree, 
whose branches spread over the spacious earth, 
and drop rich spiritual fruit among all nations. 
Wesley never dreamed, much less aimed, at such 
vast results. Surely, it is the Lord's doings, and 
is marvelous in our eyes ! 

An archbishop, meeting Charles Wesley at 
Bristol, one day, said : 

" I knew your brother well. I could never 
credit all I heard respecting him and you ; but one 
thing in your conduct I could never account for, 
your employing laymen." 

"My Lord," replied Charles Wesley, "the fault 
is yours and your brethren's." 

" How so ?" asks the astonished dignitary. 

"Because you hold your peace, and the stones 
cry out." 

" But I am told they are unlearned men," urges 
his lordship. 

" Some are, and so the dumb ass rebukes the 
prophet," the poet wittily replies. 

The archbishop was silenced, if not satisfied. 
But considering that the Wesleys had been known 



1 66 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

as High Churchmen, his surprise at their employ- 
ment of lay preachers was very natural. How 
came they to do it ? Let us see. 

Among the first, if not the first, was John Cen- 
nick. He was the son of a Quaker, and seems to 
have given little promise, in his boyhood and 
youth, of a useful life. One day, while walking 
along Cheapside, he was suddenly convinced of 
sin. He forsook his vices at once, but, not know- 
ing the way of the cross, he found no rest. He 
thought of becoming a monk or a hermit. He 
fasted long and often; he prayed nine times a day; 
he lived on potatoes, acorns, crabs, and grass; 
he tormented himself with fears of ghosts and 
devils. At last, after three weary years of self-tor- 
ment, he found peace in Jesus. Like a genuine 
disciple, he began at once to tell the story of the 
love which saved him. Wesley met him at Read- 
ing, and was pleased with his spirit. In 1739, he 
invited him to Kingswood to teach a school which 
he was gathering among his colliers. Cennick 
gladly obeyed the call, and walked from Reading to 
Bristol, sleeping one night in a stable on the way. 



FIRST THINGS. 1 67 

Wesley was in London when Cennick reached 
Bristol. Not knowing what else to do, he went to 
Kingswood to hear a young man read a sermon to 
the colliers. But the reader was not there, though 
some five hundred colliers were assembled beneath 
the branches of a sycamore. Cennick, by request, 
attempted to preach. The Lord tipped his tongue 
with fire, and many were saved in that very hour. 

Thus encouraged, he preached again and again, 
with like effects. When Wesley returned, and saw 
what the Lord had done by his instrumentality, 
he encouraged him to go on, though some of his 
more cautious brethren were anxious that he 
should be silenced. 

A year or two later, one of his Bristol converts, 
named Thomas Maxwell, being left in London to 
meet and pray with the society, almost insensibly 
began to preach. God made his words sharp ar- 
rows, and numbers were saved. Wesley, informed 
of this fresh irregularity, hastened up to London 
to stop him. But his good mother, who lived in 
the preacher's house at the foundry, said to him : 

"John, take care what you do with respect to 



1 68 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

that young man, for he is as surely called of God 
to preach as- you are." 

The Countess of Huntingdon, who had heard 
Maxwell preach, wrote to Wesley, saying, " He is 
my astonishment." What could Wesley do? He 
must either give up his High Church notions, or 
fight against God. Acting like the true man he 
was, he chose the former, threw his prejudices to 
the winds, and gladly accepted Maxwell as a 
helper called of God, though not ordained by 
men, to assist in spreading holiness through the 
land. 

You have now seen that the first chapel in Bris- 
tol ; the Foundry, cradle of London Methodism ; the 
first Methodist society, and the first lay preachers, 
were all brought into existence without any prior 
purpose on the part of our founder. They grew out 
of circumstances over which he had no control. 
They were indeed spontaneous creations. They 
were all contrary to Wesley's preconceived notions. 
Had he been told, a few years before, that he 
should countenance them, he would have asked 
with indignation, " Is thy servant a dog, that he 



FIRST THINGS. 1 69 

should do these things?" You may wonder what 
led him to act so contrary to his first notions of 
duty and propriety. The answer is simply this : 
After his soul found rest, through simple faith, he 
turned from the traditions of men to the Bible. 
The former had misled him with regard to the 
way of salvation, and he mistrusted them hence- 
forth, bringing every question of faith and duty, as 
it arose, to the Word of God for solution. In 
fact, as he tells us, he became "a man of one 
book." That is, no book but the Bible exercised 
any authority over his conscience, except as it 
agreed with its Divine teachings. Hence, in judg- 
ing the fitness of such great facts as accepting 
the aid of lay preachers, forming societies to be 
under his own pastoral care, and building churches 
for their use, he no longer looked to the opinions 
of Churchmen, authors, or bishops, but to the 
Bible. Of course, he found nothing there to hin- 
der him from following the guidance of God's 
hand in his work of spreading the glorious Gos- 
pel of the blessed Savior. To do this, cost him 
many valuable friendships, and exposed him to 



170 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

severe censures and great sufferings. But he had 
the courage of a man sustained by the faith of a 
saint. Fixing his eye, therefore, steadily on the 
"pillar of fire" which went before him, he followed 
whithersoever it led,- through good and ill, to the 
end of his days. 

Earnest men, engaged in a good work, are 
always earnestly opposed. Great obstacles rise up 
continually to retard their progress. But it is the 
glory of such great spirits to trample upon opposi- 
tion, and, by the force of superior character and 
Divine co-operation, to hew their way through 
every obstacle to final success. 

Wesley's career illustrates these truths very 
strikingly. No man's path to renown ever bristled 
with antagonisms more numerous and varied than 
those which confronted him. Some of these have 
been described. You have seen how his self-de- 
votedness surrounded him with bitter adversaries 
at Oxford, at Savannah, and at Bath. Now that 
he is just about to commence his great evangelical 
journeys through Great Britain, new difficulties, 
from unexpected quarters, confront him. The 



FIRST THINGS. 171 

friends of his bosom become his enemies. How 
did it happen? 

While the "golden-mouthed" Whitefield was 
in America, he became enamored with the writings 
of the old Puritan divines. He returned to Eng- 
land a bigoted Calvinist. Wesley, who had thor- 
oughly studied and intelligently rejected the hor- 
rible doctrines of Calvin while at Oxford, preached 
the beautiful theory of God's impartial love for 
every creature, and of the honest offer, in the Gos- 
pel, of salvation to every living soul who will 
come to Christ. Finding that many good people 
were troubled on these questions, he published a 
sermon, setting forth his views. This offended 
Whitefield. He insisted that Wesley should be 
silent on that subject. Of course, the great apos- 
tle of the rising reformation could not consent to 
suppress the marrow of those glorious truths which 
were stirring the dry bones of a dead Church, and 
saving sinners by hundreds in London, Bris- 
tol, and other places. He kept on preaching 
"free grace." Then Whitefield made war upon 
him, reluctantly at first, but bitterly at length. 



172 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Howel Harris in Wales, Cennick in Bristol, the 
Moravians in London, and others of his old 
friends, soon entered the lists, with strong arms 
and sharp lances, on Whitefield's side. Wesley 
was openly denounced. Whitefield wrote against 
him. Cennick strove to undermine his influence 
at Bristol by scoffing at his preaching, and by 
speaking evil of him and his brother. A weekly 
newspaper was started to assist in carrying on this 
fratricidal war. Scathing words from every quar- 
ter flew around his head, whistling like bullets on 
a battle-field. 

These assaults, on the part of his quondam 
friends, roused his open enemies to renewed viru- 
lence. In addition to their usual practice of in- 
sulting and mobbing him while preaching, they 
circulated the most mendacious lies concerning 
him. Among other slanderous things, they said 
that he had been fined one hundred dollars for 
selling gin ; that he kept a Popish priest in his 
house ; that he had hanged himself at Bristol, and 
was cut down just in time to save his life ; and that 
some thirty of his converts had been sent to bedlam ! 



FIRST THINGS. 1 73 

These were heavy trials to be endured by an 
innocent man who was making a daily sacrifice 
of ease, time, and earthly ambitions for the public 
good. Wesley suffered them bravely. Buoyant 
as a noble ship in a stormy sea, he rose above 
the roar of mobs, the whisperings of enemies, and 
the revilings of unfaithful friends. He did not 
permit these things so much as to depress his 
spirits, much less stop him in his great work. 
Neither would he recriminate. When Whitefield 
published his pamphlet against him, a friend 
asked : 

" Do you intend to reply to Mr. Whitefield's 
pamphlet, Mr. Wesley ?" 

"Sir," said he, "you may read Whitefield 
against Wesley, but you shall never read Wesley 
against Whitefield." 

This was noble Christian forbearance. It 
had its reward ; for, although these differences in 
opinion separated those good men as companions 
in labor, and led to the formation of "Lady Hunt- 
ingdon's connection," yet their personal alienation 
was of brief duration. Howel Harris, though he 



174 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

had called Wesley's doctrine "hellish infection," 
had a loving heart which soon yearned for per- 
sonal reconciliation with his heroic friend. He 
procured an interview between the orator and the 
organizer of Methodism. Love triumphed when 
they met ; and, since they could not think and 
preach alike, they agreed to differ, and to work 
apart in the spirit of brotherly love. Thus, you 
see, meekness hath its victories. 




Chapter" XI. 



OFF TO THE NORTH AND WEST. 



(fcSMfMfMHEN Wesley was thirty-nine years old, 
|;:|i|:p four years after his conversion, he re- 
^fej ceived an unexpected call into Yorkshire. 
* I* Hitherto he had chiefly confined his la- 
bors to the vicinities of London and Bristol ; 
but he does not appear to have formed any plan 
for spreading Methodism through England. But 
God's hour had come for pushing him out into all 
the great centers of population. The system had 
been gradually — accidentally, as it seemed — ma- 
turing, until it was capable, by simply growing, of 
becoming a vast organization. It had a recog- 
nized head, with several assistants ready to do his 
bidding. It had churches, societies just divided 

into classes, with rules and regulations and a 
12 175 



176 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

well-defined purpose. It was, in fact, an almost 
complete organization. Then the summons to 
expand the work came, at the same time, from 
very humble and from very dignified lips. 

John Nelson, a working mason, converted 
under Wesley at Moorfields, had gone back to 
his home at Birstal, in Yorkshire, like another 
Stephen, "full of faith and the Holy Ghost." 
He told the blessed story of his conversion, in 
homely phrase, but with a tongue of fire, to his 
family and neighbors. At first they thought he 
was crazy, but very soon learned that his mind 
was sounder than theirs. Many of them were 
converted. Honest John kept on telling his sim- 
ple story until more came to hear than his house 
would hold. He then stood on the door-step, 
and talked to the crowds which gathered without. 
More were saved. Religious interest was awak- 
ened in other places. The sturdy mason talked 
wherever openings appeared. Converts multiplied 
on every side. Then he raised the Macedonian 
cry to Mr. Wesley, entreating him, again and 
again, to come and direct the blessed work. 



NORTH AND WEST. 1 77 

At the same time that elect lady, the Countess 
of Huntingdon, who had laid her coronet, her 
wealth, and great influence, at the feet of Jesus, 
also wrote Wesley frequent and pressing letters 
to visit the north of England ; first, because 
a lady in her household, dying of consumption, 
very much wished to see him ; and, secondly, be- 
cause she was anxious he should try to repeat 
among the brawny colliers of the Tyne what he 
had accomplished among the begrimed coal-heavers 
of Kingswood. 

Wesley, unaware of the great things to which 
this call would lead, lingered among his beloved 
societies at Bristol and London for some time 
before accepting it. Finally he set out. After 
spending three days with the dying lady and her 
aristocratic friends, at the stately mansion of Don- 
nington Park, the home of Lady Huntingdon, he 
went to Birstal, and lodged in the humble cottage 
of the hard-handed, but big-hearted, John Nelson. 
There was a vast difference between his princely 
accommodations at Donnington Park and his 
homely resting-place in the mechanic's cottage. 



178 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

But he was as content with the one as with the 
other. He was not seeking ease, but the peace 
and elevation of immortal souls. With him, all 
other things were trifles light as air. 

The next day, at noon, Nelson took his ex- 
traordinary guest to the top of Birstal Hill, and at 
eight o'clock in the evening of the same Spring 
day, to Dewsbury Moor, two miles distant. At 
both of these places he preached with his wonted 
power. Among the converts, that day, was a 
young man named Nathaniel Harrison, the real- 
ity of whose confession was soon put to the se- 
verest tests. His angry father turned him out of 
doors ; his brutal eldest brother horse-whipped 
him ; a furious mob stoned him, and, on one 
occasion, literally bespattered itself with his blood ! 

But this heroic Methodist did not flinch. With 
a martyr's pertinacity, he kept the faith, " resisting 
unto blood." He had his reward. After living 
through the fierce persecutions of young York- 
shire Methodism, he spent many years in peace. 
In his old age — he lived to be fourscore — he was 
wont to say : 



NORTH AND WEST. 1 79 

" My soul is always on the wing. I only wait 
the summons." 

It was by such enduring courage in its first 
converts, that Methodism stood its ground. Many 
of its foundation-stones were cemented with blood ! 

From Birstal, Wesley went to Nottingham. 
There he preached to tens of thousands in the 
open air, and, for a wonder, his words awakened 
no feelings but those of "love and kindness." 
The following Sunday we find him at his early 
home, the village of Epworth. He sent a cour- 
teous message to the occupant of his father's old 
pulpit, in which he said: 

"I shall be pleased to assist you to-day, either 
by preaching or reading prayers." 

Instead of treating this offer with Christian 
civility, Romley, the curate, declined his assist- 
ance, and preached a sermon against enthusiasts 
in Wesley's presence. But the son of Epworth's 
old rector was not to be kept silent in his dead 
father's parish. As the people were leaving the 
church, John Taylor, Wesley's companion, stood 
and cried : 



l8o , A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

" Mr. Wesley, not being permitted to preach in 
the church, designs to preach in the church-yard, 
at six o'clock this evening." 

This notice electrifies the people. It flies from 
lip to lip. At the appointed hour, nearly all Ep- 
worth is seen flocking to the grave-yard. There, 
standing on his father's tombstone, the people 
see the son of their deceased rector ready to de- 
clare to them the Word of Life. The circum- 
stances are peculiar and affecting, awakening 
many tender recollections. Mr. Wesley preaches 
with unwonted power. Tears and. sobs attest the 
divinity of the truths which he pours forth from 
his earnest, loving lips. The people go home 
sober and thoughtful, purposed to hear their old 
rector's son again on the morrow. 

For eight successive nights he preaches over 
the ashes of his dead father. The effect is start- 
ling. The people weep aloud. Several drop to 
the earth as if smitten by the hand of death. 
Penitents cry aloud for mercy. Converts, just 
saved, shout glad words of grateful love. One 
night a gentleman, who has not heard prayer or 



NORTH AND WEST. l8l 

sermon for thirty years, is seen standing rigid and 
still as a stone man. 

" Sir," asks Wesley, " are you a sinner ?" 

" Sinner enough !" he exclaims, still staring up- 
ward. His weeping wife and servant then lead 
him to his carriage, and take him home. 

Thus did Wesley win triumphs for his Lord at 
Epworth. It is a remarkable fact that nearly 
every person with whom either he or his father 
had "taken any pains formerly," found remission 
of sins on this truly grand occasion. 

Scarcely had Wesley returned from his first 
evangelical tour in the North, before he was sum- 
moned to the death-chamber of his noble mother. 
He found her dying, but happy. On the morning 
of the day on which she is to ascend to heaven, 
she exclaims, on waking from sleep : 

" My dear Savior ! art thou come to help me 
at my last extremity?" 

Presently, after looking around on her two 
sons and five daughters, she smiles, and says : 

"Children, as soon as I am released, sing a 
psalm of praise to God I" 



1 82 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

In the afternoon, her pulse is almost still, but 
her eyes are fixed upward, and her look is calm. 
Wesley commends her spirit to God, and then 
they all join in singing a requiem to her departing 
soul. An hour later, without struggle, groan, or 
sigh, she falls asleep in Jesus. Then the voices 
of her children fill the chamber with a song of 
praise to Him whose love had enabled her to tri- 
umph over the fear of death. It was a unique 
and tender scene — a song of "joy in grief." 

The following Sabbath, an "immense multi- 
tude " thronged Bunhill-fields, to listen to a ser- 
mon preached by Wesley over her remains. The 
scene was solemn. The voice of the living son, 
speaking beside the open grave of the dead 
mother, fell upon the breathless crowd with effects 
as impressive as when it was raised, a few weeks 
before, over his father's tomb. The one scene 
was a fitting complement to the other. 

The 24th of June, 1744, was a memorable day 
at the Foundry, in London. Four ordained min- 
isters and four lay preachers met Wesley and his 
brother there. The sacrament was administered 



NORTH AND WEST. 1 83 

to more than two thousand souls! These had 
been gathered into the London society during the 
five preceding years. The scene was a solemn 
and imposing one. It must have been good to 
be there. 

The next morning the ten preachers met in 
conference, with Wesley at their head. Insignifi- 
cant as to numbers, but mighty in faith and works, 
these good men organized the first Wesley an Con- 
ference. They did not meet for the purpose of 
creating a new ecclesiastical structure; for, with 
obvious sincerity, they disavowed any such pur- 
pose ; nor did they meet to parcel out "fat liv- 
ings " among themselves, for their Methodistic 
work lay chiefly among the poor; neither were 
they ambitious of great reputations, for they were 
reviled on every side by the men who gave tone 
to public opinion. They "desired nothing but to 
save their own souls and those that heard them.' , 
This desire was the key-note of their discussions. 
Never, perhaps, since the meeting of the disciples 
on the day of Pentecost, had there been a gath- 
ering of men more disinterested, more pure in 



184 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

motive and aim, more terribly earnest, than these 
ten devoted servants of the Lord Jesus. 

Besides Wesley, of clergymen there were his 
brother Charles, the poet of Methodism, the peer 
of Watts, and a genuine successor, by virtue of his 
lyrical genius, of the' "sweet singer of Israel ;" 
the bold Henry Piers, Vicar of Bexley, whose 
faithful rebukes of the sins of the clergy had al- 
ready exposed him to the censures of his priestly 
superiors; the brave Samuel Taylor, Vicar of 
Quinton, grandson of a noble martyr, and the 
heroic advocate of Methodism in the teeth of sav- 
age mobs; the modest John Meriton, from the 
Isle of Man, the faithful companion of Wesley; 
and John Hodges, a Welsh rector, and a firm 
friend of Wesley and his work. The lay preachers 
were Maxfield, Bennet (subsequently Wesley's 
rival for the hand of Grace Murray), Richards, 
and John Downes, the only one of the four who 
"lived and died a Methodist." 

These earnest men sat six days, discussing 
the doctrines, methods, and rules of the Methodist 
societies, the condition of the Established Church, 



NORTH AND WEST. 1 85 

the best means of reforming it, and of saving the 
people of Great Britain. They were fearful of 
schism, and very resolute of purpose not to allow 
their movement to grow into a separate Church! 
Little did they imagine that God's purpose con- 
cerning their work infinitely transcended their 
conceptions of it, and that they were laying the 
foundation-stone of a spiritual fabric which, in a 
century and a quarter, would be the greatest and 
grandest Protestant institution on the face of the 
earth. Yet such, in fact, was the work they did. 
From that conference of ten mostly unknown men 
have grown those systems of Methodist confer- 
ences which now girdle the globe, and direct the 
labors of thousands upon thousands of ministers, 
who are constantly traveling and preaching the 
Gospel to almost every nation under heaven. 
Thus, while these good and true men honored 
God, by aiming at the highest good for its own 
sake, God honored them by making their work 
fruitful beyond all expectation and precedent. 

Every step in Wesley's remarkable career was 
evidently directed by the providence of his beloved 



T 86 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Lord. The ancient Israelites were not more 
really led by Moses from Egypt to Palestine, than 
was Wesley, by the invisible hand of God, into 
the lengths and breadths of England's territory. 
We have seen how the almost unlettered John 
Nelson and the cultivated Lady Huntingdon 
were unconsciously joined in calling him to the 
North. We will now inquire how his Master led 
his willing feet to carry the "good tidings of great 
joy" to the beautiful vales and barren moors of 
the West. 

Among his Bristol converts was a Captain 
Turner, who, for purposes of business or pleasure, 
visited St. Ives, in Cornwall. Here, to his great 
surprise and gratification, he found a matron, 
named Catherine Quick, and eleven others, in 
the habit of meeting together for prayer. The 
Bristol Methodist spoke enthusiastically of Wes- 
ley and of Methodism to this godly little group. 
They caught some of the good man's fire, and 
immediately invited Wesley to Cornwall. Such 
was the little door through which our founder 
entered the West of England, and began that 



NORTH AND WEST. 1 87 

mighty work among its rude miners and villagers 
which transformed them, by thousands, from brutal 
sinners into active, happy saints. 

It was high time for the appearance of ex- 
traordinary messengers among the miners and peas- 
antry of the West. They were literally wallowing 
in the mire of brutality, and groping their way in 
the thickest darkness of ignorance. Among them 
were many notorious smugglers and cruel robber 
wreckers. Their chosen sports were cock-fighting, 
bull-baiting, and wrestling. They were also slaves 
of the ale-barrel and gin-bottle. Vice was the 
rule, virtue the rare exception. Their marvelous 
ignorance may be illustrated by an incident which, 
if not well authenticated, might very naturally be 
thought apocryphal. It occurred in a village five 
miles from Helstone, in Cornwall, which was liter- 
ally without a copy of the Bible, or other religious 
work, except a copy of the "Book of Common 
Prayer," which was kept at the tavern. 

It happened, one day, that a fearful storm swept 
over the village. The people were terrified, think- 
ing the world was coming to a speedy end. In 



158 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

their fright, they fled to the tavern, crying to Tom, 
the bar-tender: 

"Read us a prayer, Tom; read us a prayer!" 

With this request, they dropped on their knees. 
Tom snatched up a book, and began to read about 
storms and wrecks. Very soon his mistress, dis- 
covering that he was reading the wrong book, 
cried out: 

" Tom, that is Robinson Crusoe !" 

" No," replied the bar-tender, who was either a 
low humorist or a very ignorant man ; " no, it is 
the Prayer-book." 

Again the reading proceeded, until Tom came 
to a description of the man Friday, when the mis- 
tress of the tavern again interrupted him, sayingj 

" Tom, I am certain you are reading Robinson 
Crusoe!" 

"Well, well, I suppose I am," replied the tap- 
ster, "there are as good prayers in Robinson Crusoe 
as in any other book." 

So Tom read on, until the storm abated. Then 
the stupid villagers rose from their knees and 
went to their homes, congratulating themselves on 



NORTH AND WEST. 1 89 

having performed a religious duty! It was high 
time, surely, that some one appeared among such 
a people, holding the light of heavenly truth in 
his hand. 

Prompt to follow the leadings of his Lord, 
Wesley sent fris brother into Cornwall at once. 
As might be expected among such a people, he 
met with a rude reception. The resident clergy 
railed against him ; the rabble assaulted him. He 
bore their rough treatment with a heroism equal 
to that of his noble brother, but was soon recalled 
to London. 

Wesley himself went down shortly after, ac- 
companied by the brave-hearted John Nelson and 
three other helpers of like spirit. 

This spiritual foray into Satan's dominion was 
no idle pastime. Our heroes, like true soldiers, 
had to endure both hardships and violence. Their 
lodging, at one time, was in a room without a bed. 
Wesley and Nelson slept on the floor. Nelson's 
overcoat served for Wesley's pillow, while Bur- 
kitt's "Notes on the New Testament" did that 
service for Nelson. After using this hard bed for 



190 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

two weeks, Wesley awoke one morning, at three 
o'clock, turned over, touched his companion on 
the side, and jocosely said: 

" Brother Nelson, let us be of good cheer, for 
the skin is off but one side yet." 

Their board was no better than their lodging. 
They preached continually, but were seldom asked 
to eat or drink. They lived partly on berries. 
While picking some blackberries, one day, Wesley 
said: 

"Brother Nelson, we ought to be thankful 
that there is plenty of blackberries ; for this is 
the best country I ever saw for getting an appetite, 
but the worst for getting food." 

During this visit to Cornwall, the rabble did 
little more than roar against Wesley • but as his 
helpers kept preaching, and hundreds were con- 
verted, the mob, excited by a Dr. Borlaise, and 
other gentlemen of property and standing, became 
more and more violent. Maxwell was seized by 
the press-gang, Shepherd was arrested as a dis- 
turber of the peace, and the converts were fre- 
quently subjected to very harsh treatment. During 



NORTH AND WEST. 191 

a subsequent tour, Wesley narrowly escaped a 
martyr's death. 

It was on a pleasant July afternoon, at Fal- 
mouth. Wesley had been greatly annoyed during 
the preceding days, at St. Just's and Gwennap, 
by warrants for his arrest, which the officers lacked 
courage to execute. After arriving at Falmouth, 
he enters a house to visit a lady invalid. Scarcely 
is he seated, before a countless rabble surround 
the dwelling, shouting like savages, and roaring 
with "all their throats." At first the invalid lady 
strives to quiet their fury. She might as easily 
still the raging waves of the sea. Disheartened, 
if not terrified, she soon retires, leaving Wesley 
and a little serving-maid, named Kitty, to deal 
with the infuriated mob. 

" Bring out the Canorum !" (a Cornish slang- 
word for Methodist.) "Bring out the Canorum!" 
they shout, with a voice like the sound of many 
waters. 

Wesley remains silent within. The foremost 

men then force open the street door, and crowd 

into the hall, uttering curses and fierce imprecations. 
13 



192 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

The partition trembles and seems ready to break 
down. So unmoved by fear for himself is Wesley, 
that, seeing a large mirror, on the inside of the 
partition, in danger of falling, he mounts a chair, 
takes down the glass, and removes it to a place 
of safety. The poor girl who is in the room 
becomes terror-stricken, and exclaims : 

a O, sir, what must we do?" 

"We must pray," replies Wesley, beginning to 
feel, but not to fear, that his hour was really come. 

"But sir," pleads the brave girl, "is it not 
best for you to hide yourself? to get into the 
closet ?" 

"No, it is best for me to stand just where I 
am," he rejoins. 

Just then a body of rough sailors, belonging to 
some privateers lying in the harbor, become en- 
raged at the slowness of the proceedings. They 
make a rush toward the hall, force back the par- 
ties in possession, set their shoulders against the 
inside door, and shout : 

"Avast, lads, avast !" 

The hinges give way. The door falls into the 



NORTH AND WEST. 1 93 

room. Then our fearless Wesley steps forward, 
bare-headed, and calmly says : 

"Here I am. Which of you has any thing 
to say to me ? To which of you have I done any 
wrong ? To you ? or you ? or you ?" 

The rioters are awed by his voice and the air 
of authority with which he speaks. Hands raised 
to strike are arrested as by an invisible force. 
The people fall back. He advances as they re- 
tire, step by step, until he stands in the middle of 
the street. Then he appeals to them, saying: 

" Neighbors, countrymen ! Do you desire to 
hear me speak?" 

The crowd feel that a superior mind, a master 
spirit, is among them. Their rage subsides, and 
they shout vehemently : 

" Yes, yes, he shall speak — he shall ! Nobody 
shall hinder him." 

Unfortunately, the ground on which his small 
person stands is too low to give him perfect com- 
mand of that surging mass of human beings ; but 
as far as his voice can be heard, they are still and 
orderly. Very soon the leaders of the mob are not 



194 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

merely cowed, they are changed into his friends, 
and, with oaths which grate harshly on the good 
man's ears, exclaim: 

"Not a man shall touch this gentleman !" 
At that moment a clergyman, either ashamed 
of the scene or subdued by the grandeur of Wes- 
ley's soul, speaks to the mob, asking : 

"Are you not ashamed to use a stranger thus?" 
Other gentlemen now step up, and escort our 
undaunted founder through the street, and into a 
house. Behind this dwelling is the shore of the 
bay. They put Wesley into a boat, and row him 
to Penryn. Some of the mob now recover their 
courage, and follow the boat along the shore, 
cursing loudly and fiercely, to the landing. Here, 
any ordinary man would have recoiled. But our 
great-hearted Wesley, not knowing fear, leaps from 
the boat, and nimbly ascends the steep, narrow 
passage to the landing above. The foremost man 
of the mob glares on him with the fire of hellish 
passion in his eyes. Wesley shrinks not, but ad- 
vancing, and looking into the fellow's evil face, 
says : 



NORTH AND WEST. 195 

"I wish you a good-night." 

The man stands spell-bound, until Wesley 
mounts his horse, which has been sent round to 
meet him. But no sooner is he relieved from the 
power of Wesley's eye than his vile passion re- 
sumes its sway, and he growls between his teeth : 

" I wish you was in hell !" 

This bad wish falls harmlessly on Wesley's 
ears, as he rides joyfully along through the still 
evening air to his next appointment. 

This exciting incident not only illustrates the 
heroic courage of our noble Wesley, but it also 
shows the power which his personal presence ex- 
ercised over men. They quailed before the glance 
of his eyes. Why? Not because his physical 
aspect was commanding — for, as you know, he 
was a small man, delicately formed — but because 
he had a great soul, which rose on every trying 
occasion, under the inspiration of a mighty faith 
in God, into a grandeur almost supernatural. With 
such a leader, is it surprising that the first Meth- 
odist preachers stood up like heroes, and bore the 
brunt of those bitter hostilities which almost every 



196 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

where rose up to oppose the spread of the great 
Wesleyan revival? 

But, notwithstanding all the violence of the 
mob, and the enmity of formalist ministers and 
Church officers, the work of God increased won- 
derfully in Cornwall, as elsewhere. Thousands 
who came to mock, remained to pray. Societies 
were organized, churches built, congregations gath- 
ered. The mines of Cornwall, instead of ringing 
with the blasphemies of brutal workmen, soon 
echoed the happy voices of souls redeemed by 
the blood of Christ, singing the sweet hymns of 
Wesley's immortal brother. 



Cr^tef XII. 



IN THE EMERALD ISLE AND ON SCOTIA'S 
HILLS. 



J RELAND, unrivaled in natural beauty, but 
long cursed with moral desolation by the 
% policy of Papist teachers, was first visited 
by Wesley in 1747. Thither, as elsewhere, 
he went in response to a Macedonian cry. 

His pioneer in this part of his work was one 
of his helpers, named Thomas Williams, "a man 
of attractive appearance, pleasing manners, and 
good address." Crossing the Channel, this enter- 
prising evangelist found a society of Moravians 
in Dublin, which had been raised up by John 
Cennick — a good but fickle-minded man — who, 
having first forsaken Wesley for Whitefield, had 
finally joined the Moravians. Some of Cennick's 
followers flocked to hear Williams, as did many 

197 



198 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

others in Dublin. A society was formed. Souls 
were converted. The work soon looked so prom- 
ising, that Williams wrote for Wesley to come and 
give it supervision. 

Wesley responded with alacrity, found nearly 
three hundred members in society, and a congre- 
gation of over four hundred people worshiping in 
a church formerly owned by the Lutherans. He 
was delighted with his reception, preached twice 
a day to crowds of rich and poor, for a fortnight. 
He then recrossed the Channel, and sent his 
brother to extend the work. 

When Charles Wesley reached Dublin, he found 
that the sunny welcome given to his brother had 
been succeeded by a storm of mob violence. The 
church had been stripped of its benches and pul- 
pit, which had been burned in the street. Papist 
Irishmen had beaten the members of the young 
society with shillalahs, and nicknamed them 
"Swaddlers." 

This term of reproach originated from a re- 
mark made by John Cennick, who, while denouncing 
Popish idolatry, had said : 



IN THE EMERALD ISLE. 1 99 

"I curse and blaspheme all the gods in heaven, 
but the Babe that lay in Mary's lap, the Babe that 
lay in swaddling clouts." 

Because of this by no means graceful speech, 
the Catholics called Cennick " Swaddling John," 
and the Methodists " Swaddlers." 

But neither vulgar nicknames nor popular vio- 
lence could prevent Charles Wesley from pro- 
claiming Jesus. Driven from the church, he 
preached, at the peril of his life, on Oxmanton 
Green, until he could purchase a suitable build- 
ing. This was found in a few weeks. It had 
been a weaver's shop, and was now fitted up for 
a preaching-room, with rooms over it for the 
preacher's home. Here Methodism intrenched 
itself too strongly to be driven out. 

After a few months' service in Dublin and other 
places, Charles returned to England, and John re- 
visited the "Green Isle," preaching extensively 
and with pre-eminent success, though not without 
bitter opposition, in many places. 

At Cork, young Methodism, though quietly 
born, was speedily baptized with blood. The 



203 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

clergy, jealous of its sudden popularity, secretly 
stirred up the civic officers, and they openly sus- 
tained a notorious ballad-singer, named Butler, 
in getting up a mob. This vulgar scoundrel 
dressed himself in clerical gown and bands, car- 
ried a Bible in one hand and a bundle of ribald 
ballads in the other, and paraded the streets, 
singing villainous lies about the Methodists, in 
doggerel rhymes. The ignorant Catholics listened 
to his songs, became inflamed with passion, and 
soon gathered into a furious mob. They followed 
him to the meeting-house, and pelted the people 
with mire and stones. Growing bolder with im- 
punity, they beat the unoffending Methodists with 
clubs, and cut them with swords. They next at- 
tacked them in their homes, smashing their win- 
dows and spoiling their goods. This savage work 
was carried on almost daily, for weeks and months. 
One day, Wesley rode into the city. The people 
rose, crowded the streets, and rushed to their 
doors and windows, in countless multitudes. Judg- 
ing it prudent not to stop, our brave itinerant rode 
steadily on, and through the city, unharmed. Had 



IN THE EMERALD ISLE. 201 

he paused to preach, it is more than probable that 
the scowling mob would have torn him to pieces. 
He wisely chose to bide his opportunity. 

In vain did his persecuted followers appeal to 
the mayor and magistrates for protection. The 
rioters grew more and more fierce. They de- 
stroyed every movable thing within the chapel. 
They cut and gashed the persons of both men 
and women, and drove numbers of them out of 
the city. Finally, they prosecuted several of the 
preachers as vagabonds, at the Spring term of the 
court. 

These humble heroes of the cross were arrested 
and placed in the criminaFs dock, like common 
thieves. The mountebank Butler was the first 
witness called. The judge appears to have been 
a real gentleman. Fixing his keen eye on the 
ballad-monger, he asked, sternly: 

" What is your calling, sirrah ?" 

" I sing ballads, my lord," replied the cowed 
wretch, in a sheepish tone. 

The astonished judge raised his hands, and 
exclaimed : 



202 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

"Here are six gentlemen indicted as vaga- 
bonds, and the first accuser is a vagabond by 
profession ! Bring on your next witness." 

Another low fellow then took the stand. The 
judge asked him, also : 

"What is your calling, sirrah?" 

With an impudent leer and tone, the man 
replied : 

" I am an anti-swaddler, my lord." 

"Take that fellow out of court!" cried the 
insulted judge to the sheriff. 

He was promptly obeyed ; and then, after giving 
the corporation and others concerned a scorching 
reprimand for permitting the disgraceful riots, so 
long headed by Butler, he discharged the heroic 
itinerants. 

Butler was effectually squelched by this merited 
rebuff, and left Coik in disgrace. But he did not 
change his habits. Going to Waterford, he lost 
his arm in a riot, and fled to Dublin, where he 
was actually saved from starving by the alms of 
the Dublin Methodists. How beautiful is Chris- 
tian charity ! 



IN THE EMERALD ISLE. 203 

But the mob-spirit in Cork, though checked, 
was not dead. When Wesley showed himself 
there again, as he did shortly after Butler's dis- 
grace, the rabble surrounded the preaching-house 
as soon as the service began. The mayor, under the 
pretense of keeping the peace, had ordered out 
some soldiers and drummers. The latter, to the 
gratification of the mob, kept up a loud drumming. 
But Wesley would not be drummed down. He 
finished his sermon in spite of the noise, and then 
boldly walked out into the street. 

His appearance was the signal for a one-sided 
battle. Missiles of all sorts flew from every quar- 
ter, and fell all around ; but nothing struck him. 
Seeing a sergeant near him, he said, authorita- 
tively : 

" Sergeant, I desire you to keep the king's 
peace.' , 

" I have no orders to do that, sir," replied the 
soldier, respectfully, but showing by his answer 
that the mayor did not wish to protect Wesley or 
his followers. 

Our noble founder then walked boldly into the 



204 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

midst of the surging mob, looking firmly into the 
eye of every man before him. Overawed by his 
manner, the cowardly wretches fell back as he 
advanced. When he reached a bridge, which he 
must needs cross, he found it crowded with a grim 
rabble, one of whom shouted : 

"Now, hey, for the Romans!" 

But Wesley did not hesitate an instant. On 
he went, one against hundreds. Stepping upon 
the bridge, he saw the mob quail once more be- 
neath the imperial glance of his unshrinking eye, 
and he walked through the parting mass of human 
beings, like a conqueror, to his friend's house be- 
yond. There a stout Romanist had taken posses- 
sion of the doorway, to prevent his entrance. The 
moment Wesley paused before this rude fellow, 
one of the mob hurled a stone at his head. It 
missed its aim, but knocked down his adversary, 
and he entered the house over his prostrate body. 

The Cork riots continued a while longer, and 
Wesley was burned in effigy. But they were finally 
worn out by the patient spirit of that glorious 
young Methodism which, having "endured all 



ON SCOTIA'S HILLS. 20$ 

things " short of actual martyrdom, finally made 
itself a mighty religious power in that uproarious 
city. The rock had resisted and overcome the 
waves. 

Wesley spent much time and sent numerous 
helpers into Ireland. He seems to have had a 
strong faith in the fruitfuhiess of his Irish work. 
When expostulated with by the English societies 
for doing so much for the Green Isle, he said : 

" Have patience, and Ireland will repay you !" 

This reply was prophetic. Irish Methodism, 
though it has not yet cleansed the Emerald Isle of 
the corruptions of Romanism, has saved thou- 
sands, and given to English and American Meth- 
odism some of its noblest historic names. 

Wesley's first visit to Scotland was in 1751, at 
the request of a brave, pious, and accomplished 
soldier, named Captain Gallatin, who profoundly 
admired our great revivalist. The Scotch, unlike 
their Irish cousins, received him with respectful 
courtesy. They had fought too many battles for 
religious freedom even to think of a resort to mob 
violence against a preacher of righteousness, how- 



206 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

ever they might differ from him in opinion and 
dispute his doctrines. Hence it was that, on this 
and on subsequent visits to Scotland, Wesley was 
listened to with marked attention by all classes, 
from the humblest clansman to the proudest chief. 
Among those benefited by his labors was Lady 
Frances Gardiner, widow of the chivalric Colonel 
Gardiner; Lady Maxwell, and Lady Glenorchy — 
noble and elect ladies, whose labors of love gave 
ample illustration of the heavenly quality of the 
genuine Methodistic spirit. 

Wesley sent his preachers into Scotland, and 
they formed societies in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Ab- 
erdeen, and other cities. But for reasons growing 
partly out of the deep-rooted prejudices of the 
Scotch, and partly, perhaps, out of well-meant but 
ill-advised attempts on the part of the preachers 
to modify the system to meet those prejudices, 
Methodism never gained so deep a hold nor at- 
tained so wide a success in Scotland as it did in 
England. Still it has been a blessing to thou- 
sands upon thousands in whose veins flowed that 
grand old Covenanters' blood which their sturdy 



ON SCOTIA'S HILLS. 207 

ancestors poured out on many a gory field in 
defense of the truth. 

The kind of work done in Scotland by Method- 
ism is well illustrated by the following typical 
incident : 

Poor old Janet met her former pastor, one day, 
as she was hobbling through a street in Glasgow. 
She courtesied respectfully. He shook her hand, 
and said: 

" O, Janet, where have you been, woman ? I 
have na' seen ye at the kirk for long." 

" I go among the ' Methodists/ " replied Janet, 
smiling as with pleasant recollections. 

" Among the Methodists ! Why, what gude get 
ye there, woman ?" 

"Glory to God!" rejoins Janet, with deep feel- 
ing and kindling eyes, " I do get gude ; for God, 
for Christ's sake, has forgiven me a' my sins." 

The minister shook his head, like one in doubt, 
and said: 

" Ah, Janet, be not high-minded, but fear ; the 
devil is a cunning adversary." 

"I dinna' caje a button for the deevil," 



208 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

answered Janet, with spirit. " I Ve gotten him 
under my feet. I ken the deevil can do muckle 
deal, but there is ane thing he canna' do." 

"What is that, Janet?" asks the puzzled 
minister. 

" He canna' shed abroad the love of God in my 
heart, and I am sure I have got it there," was 
Janet's triumphant but devout reply. 

"Weel, weel," rejoined the minister, smiling 
good-naturedly, "if ye have got it there, Janet, 
hold it fast, and never let it go." 

This was good advice. Janet acted upon it, 
and kept her faith until she entered the " Beautiful 
City." May the reader live and die in the same 
precious faith ! 




(tykptef XIII. 



GRACE MURRAY AND MRS. VAZEILLE. 



(6w^?^)HEN Wesley was forty years old, he wrote 
^WgrW' a tract commending a single life as more 
&p|& conducive to piety and usefulness than a 
1 Y married one. This was one of our great 
man's mistakes. It probably grew partly out of 
his early ascetic notions, partly out of his keen 
perception of the difficulty of harmonizing the du- 
ties of an itinerant career, such as it then was, 
with the claims of domestic life. Possibly, his 
wounded affections, in the case of Miss Hopkey, 
at Savannah, may have unconsciously influenced 
his opinion. Be this as it may, at the Conference 
of 1748, a discussion of the doctrine of the tract, 
originating with his brother Charles, then con- 
templating marriage, convinced him "that a 

209 



2IO A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

believer might marry without suffering loss in his 
soul." The only remarkable thing about this con- 
clusion is, that such a clear headed man could 
have ever thought otherwise. For, if marriage be 
an institution of God, how can he who conforms 
to it be, for that reason, less acceptable or less 
holy in the sight of him who ordained it? It is 
not the right use, but the abuse, of the marriage 
relation, which mars the beauty and dims the 
vision of the soul. 

The year following this discussion, Charles 
Wesley, after much serious thought, consultation 
with friends, and prayer, was married to Miss 

Sarah Gwynne. This young lady was the accom- 

# 
plished daughter of a Welsh gentleman of fortune 

and position. Wesley performed the ceremony, 

and the bridegroom says of the bridal party : 

" We* were cheerful, without mirth ; serious, 
without sadness ; and my brother seemed the 
happiest person among us." 

The bride made a great sacrifice of external 
comforts when she exchanged her father's mansion 
for the meagre appointments of the preachers' 



GRACE MURRAY— MRS. VAZEILLE. 211 

houses at Bristol and London. Nevertheless 3 it 
was a happy marriage, because it sprang from 
love, and the bride and her husband* were intellect- 
ually and spiritually fitted for each other. It must 
be conceded, however, that it contributed, with 
other causes, to the limitation of the husband's 
evangelistic sphere. The innocent delights of a 
refined family circle gradually charmed the poet of 
Methodism, until he lost his relish for the excite- 
ments, dangers, and pleasures of those long preach- 
ing tours in which he formerly delighted. His 
journeys grew shorter by degrees, and became less 
frequent, until his labors were mainly restricted to 
Bristol and London. Nevertheless, our great lyr- 
ical poet remained true to his Master, and, in 
most things, to his more persistent brother and to 
Methodism, down to the end of his days. 

Having honestly changed his opinion, Wesley, 
shortly after, resolved to change his state, and to 
become a married man. His right to form this 
purpose, no one may dispute. Of its prudence he 
was the most competent judge. 

The lady to whom he offered his hand was 



212 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

named Grace Murray. Her maiden name was 
Norman. She had been serious when a child, gay 
when a girl, a* servant in London when eighteen 
years old, and, though her education had been 
quite limited, was a very attractive and talented 
woman. 

In London, she won the affections of a Scotch 
sailor, named Murray, of highly respectable con- 
nections, and became his wife. The death of her 
first-born child was followed by seriousness, by 
attendance on Whitefield's and Wesley's ministry, 
and by her conversion. Her husband, on return- 
ing from sea, was exasperated to find that she had 
become a Methodist, and angrily — yes, furiously — 
told her she should not go to hear the Methodists 
again. But, with true Christian, Methodistic gen- 
tleness and grit, she replied : 

"I can not yield to you in this, my dear. If I 
should, I should lose my soul." 

"Well," said the angry sailor, with a fierce 
manner and many curses, "you shall leave the 
Methodists or me." 

This was bringing things to a serious issue ; 



GRACE MURRAY— MRS. VAZEILLE. 213 

but, with true Christ-like heroism, she gently 
rejoined : 

" I love you above any one else on earth ; but 
I will leave you, and all that I have on earth, 
sooner than I will leave Christ." 

He then threatened to put her into a mad- 
house, but she nobly responded : 

" I am ready to go not only to prison, but to 
death." 

He next swore that he would leave her and 
"go as far as ships can sail," but she firmly 
maintained her ground, saying meekly, but without 
flinching : 

" I can not help it. I could lay down my life 
for you, but I can not destroy my soul." 

These were grand words, and the heroic woman 
meant them. They had a glorious effect. The 
sailor softened down by degrees, and, after some 
time, entered with her into the fellowship of Jesus. 
Woman's firmness, mellowed by woman's love, con- 
quered the irate sailor and prepared him to submit 
to her Master. It was well for him that he did so ; 
for, a year or two later, he was drowned at sea. 



214 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

At twenty-six, Grace " returned to her mother's 
at Newcastle, a young, fascinating widow. " Here 
she became the leader of several classes, and a 
visitor of the neighboring societies, speaking to 
and praying with the people. Wesley, appre- 
ciating her remarkable ability, desired her to enter 
his Orphan-house at Newcastle, as a sort of nurse 
and matron to such sick preachers, from the sur- 
rounding circuits, as might need her care. Yield- 
ing to his wishes, she soon devoted herself entirely 
to the service of the Church, now visiting the 
societies and then nursing the sick, as occasion 
required. 

Among the preachers whom she nursed was 
John Bennet, in 1747, and, in 1749, Wesley him- 
self. At the close of his six-days' illness, Wesley, 
not knowing that she had long been corresponding 
with Bennet, proposed marriage to his astonished 
nurse. She promptly accepted him, saying : 

" This is too great a blessing for me. I can 't 
tell how to believe it. This is all I could have 
wished for under heaven." 

A week or ten days later, the great reformer, 



GRACE MURRAY— MRS. VAZEILLE. 21 5 

being about to start on a long spiritual campaign, 
said to Grace : 

"I am fully convinced that God intended you 
to be my wife ; and though we must part at present, 
I hope when we again meet, we shall part no 
more." 

Upon, this, the demonstrative widow "begged 
they might not separate so soon, saying that it was 
more than she could bear." Pleased with her 
seeming devotion, Wesley imprudently took her 
with him, and, as he says, "she was unspeakably 
useful both to him and to the societies." 

In Derbyshire they met with John Bennet, 
whom she had formerly nursed at Newcastle for 
twenty-six weeks. Here Grace found that she 
"could bear" to part with her unsuspecting lover; 
and here she chose to pause, leaving him to pro- 
ceed on his tour alone. Scarcely had Wesley left, 
however, when he received one letter from Bennet, 
asking his permission to marry Grace, and another 
from the widow herself, " declaring that # she be- 
lieved it was the will of God that she should " 
become Bennet's wife ! 



2l6 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Wesley was "utterly amazed." Supposing they 
were already married, this great man, in whom the 
meekness of Moses was blended with the patience 
of Job, instead of yielding to a virtuous indigna- 
tion, simply "wrote a mild letter to both." What 
singular forbearance ! 

Here we can not but regret that our Wesley did 
not treat Grace as an unprincipled coquette, and 
indignantly refuse all further communication with 
her. That he did not, was owing partly to his 
great and sincere affection for the woman, and 
partly to that marvelous spirit of forgiveness which 
led him, habitually, to overlook the faults of his 
friends. Wesley's great heart never resented per- 
sonal injuries. It could and did suffer, but it never 
moved him to give back blow for blow, except in 
defense of the truth. 

Hence it came to pass that, after further corre- 
spondence, he unwisely, weakly perhaps, consented 
to the renewal of their engagement. She then ac- 
companied him to Ireland, acting as "his servant, 
friend, and fellow-laborer in the Gospel." In 
Dublin, they agreed to marry, in presence of wit- 



GRACE MURRAY— MRS. VAZEILLE. 2\y 

nesses. On their return to England, with strange 
insincerity she renewed her old correspondence 
with Bennet. Months now passed, during which 
she coquetted between the two, professing the most 
devoted love, now to one, and then to the other, 
frequently repeating and retracting her promise of 
marriage to both. Evidently, she was a most 
unmitigated flirt. 

Meanwhile, the affair began to agitate the soci- 
eties. The people, wiser, in this thing at least, 
than their great leader, saw that Grace was not a 
suitable woman to be Wesley's wife, and they 
spoke strongly against the marriage. Finally, 
Charles Wesley interfered, with a strong protest. 
He urged the meanness of her origin and her 
general unfitness. But love had made his natu- 
rally aristocratic brother quite democratic, and he 
replied, that he did not intend to marry Grace 
"for her birth, but for her qualifications, " which, 
he said, were eminent and proper, as, no doubt, 
he sincerely believed them to be. 

Finding his brother was not to be moved, 
Charles hastened to meet Grace. He took her 



2l8 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

to Newcastle, where John Ben net met them. 
Grace, with singular inconsistency, at once con- 
fessed to Bennet that she had ill-used him, and 
begged him to forgive her. They were reconciled, 
and married within a week, Charles remaining at 
Newcastle until the knot was tied. 

Whitefield, hearing of the marriage, sent for 
Wesley to' visit him at Leeds. He went with a 
very deeply wounded heart, and Whitefield com- 
forted him by his earnest prayers and sympathetic 
tears. The next day Charles made his appear- 
ance, bringing the bride and bridegroom with him. 
Charles, whose indignation against his brother was 
still at the boiling point, impetuously exclaimed, 
on entering the room where Wesley was : 

" I renounce all intercourse with you, but what 
I would have with a heathen man or a publican." 

This foolish and unbrotherly speech brought a 
flood of tears from the eyes of the susceptible 
Whitefield and the sympathetic John Nelson, who 
were both present. They prayed, wept, and en- 
treated, until Charles cooled down, and then the 
two noble brothers, unable to speak, fell on each 



GRACE MURRAY— MRS. VAZEILLE. 219 

other's neck and wept in the silent sympathy of 
renewed fraternal love. 

Presently John Bennet was introduced. One 
would naturally suppose that the much injured 
Wesley would have received his successful rival 
with coolness, if not with stern words; but, in- 
stead of treating him harshly, he — kissed hin; 
What was this unparalleled nobleness but the fruit 
of heavenly love ruling in a great soul? 

He met the false bride also ; but we know not 
the particulars of their interview. "You never 
saw such a scene," he wrote to a friend ; and this 
is all we know about it. It was thirty-nine years 
before they met again, and then for a few minutes 
only. After that, he was never known to mention 
even her name. 

As for Grace, she followed her husband in his 
abandonment of Wesley and his work, into a pn> 
fession of ultra Calvinism. Bennet became pas- 
tor of a Calvinist Church, and lived ten years 
after his marriage, when Grace found herself a 
widow again, with five sons. Subsequently, she 
lived a retired life, rejoined the Methodists after 



220 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

several years, and became a very exemplary Chris- 
tian matron in her old age. When eighty-seven, 
she died, exclaiming: 

"Glory be to thee, my God; peace thou 
givest!" 

How shall we account for Grace Murray's 
shameful treatment of Mr. Wesley ? After care- 
fully reading all the available facts, the writer 
concludes that her coquetry resulted from a con- 
flict between her ambition and her love. Her 
heart was with Bennet before Wesley proposed 
to her. She ought to have told him so, and there 
the matter would have ended ; for Wesley was 
too high-minded to contend for the hand of any 
woman whose heart was in another man's keeping. 
But, dazzled with the prospect of becoming the 
wife of so cerebrated a man, she concealed her 
prior attachment and correspondence, and pledged 
him her already engaged hand. But when Ben- 
net appeared, her heart triumphed over her ambi- 
tion. When he was absent and Wesley present, 
her ambition dominated over love. And thus the 
disgraceful contest went on, until it was ended 



GRACE MURRAY— MRS. VAZEILLE. 221 

by her hurried marriage with Bennet, through 
the interposition of Charles Wesley. Her unpar- 
donable coquetry is an indelible spot upon her 
otherwise fair fame, and should teach both maid- 
ens and widows to act honorably with their 
suitors. 

Wesley was wounded to the quick by this 
woman's ill-treatment. But, after giving utterance 
to his griefs in prayer and in poetry, he again 
girded his soul for work. Plunging with all his 
might into the thick of God's battle, his heart 
soon found the healing streams of Divine conso- 
lation, and he went on his way rejoicing. 

Wesley, having made up his mind to marry, 
did not permit the shameful coquetry, of Grace 
Murray to turn him from his purpose. Hence, 
about fifteen months after she gave her hand to 
John Bennet, we find our great founder proposing 
marriage to a merchant's widow, named Vazeille. 

This lady resided in London. Though once a 
domestic servant, she had gained highly respect- 
able connections by her marriage with her late 
husband. She was the possessor of $50,000 — a 



222 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

goodly fortune in those times — rwhich sum was 
securely settled on herself and four children. She 
was seven years younger than Wesley. 

Her person was very attractive, her manner un- 
commonly agreeable. Her conversational powers 
were -superior, and she could adapt herself readily 
to rich and poor; especially when speaking to 
them of personal religion. She seemed like a per- 
son of extraordinary piety, but of a "sorrowful 
spirit" — pensive, as was becoming in a widow. 

Such was the Widow Vazeille, outwardly. It 
is not, therefore, surprising that Wesley judged 
her a suitable person to become his wife. His 
insight into character, especially female character, 
was not ejqual to his other endowments. Possibly, 
his own habitual sincerity rendered him incapable 
of suspecting insincerity in others. Scorning to 
wear a mask himself, he rarely thought of looking 
for one on the faces of his friends, and was, con- 
sequently, often deceived. At any rate, he esti- 
mated the fair widow at her seeming value, and 
resolved to make her his wife. 

His brother, with a keener perception of her 



GRACE MURRAY— MRS. VAZEILLE. 223 

real character, protested strongly, angrily even, 
but vainly. Wesley had made up his mind, and 
nothing could turn him. As usual, where his 
convictions of personal duty were concerned, his 
will was iron. 

The circumstances of this unfortunate marriage 
were both curious and characteristic. So seem- 
ingly trivial a thing as a fall on the ice had much 
to do with it. It is late in January, 1751, and 
he is about to depart on his long annual tour to 
the North, when, on the morning of the day pre- 
ceding the one fixed for his departure, he slips on 
the ice, while crossing London Bridge, and sprains 
a leg and an ankle, badly. A surgeon binds up 
the injured limb, and, though suffering severe pain, 
Wesley resolutely limps to his appointment, and 
preaches. At night he attempts to preach again, at 
the Foundry, but the anguish of his limb proves 
stronger than his will, imperial though it be, and 
he is compelled to yield the pulpit to another. 
Then, as if impelled by a cruel fate to rush on 
his evil destiny, he orders himself to be removed 

to the widow's mansion, on Threadneedle Street. 
15 



224 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

The ambitious woman receives him affection- 
ately, no doubt, and nurses him kindly, throwing 
all the witchery of her charms around him, for 
the next seven days. But neither love nor pain 
can keep him from his life-work. He spends the 
time, as he tells us, "partly in prayer, reading, and 
conversation, and partly in writing a ' Hebrew 
Grammar and Lessons for Children.' " 

Good and useful employments, these, for our 
lame reformer, — all but the conversation. That 
even this was grave and becoming there can be 
no doubt, for this good man never trifled. He 
did, unquestionably, speak of their marriage with 
characteristic seriousness, faithfully pointing out 
the domestic sacrifices she would have to make in 
accepting his hand. She, on her part, promises 
not to hinder him one jot, but to help him in his 
great work. The result is, that, on the Monday or 
Tuesday following, we see him, though "still un- 
able to set his foot to the ground," kneeling at the 
hymeneal altar with his hostess. 

The crippled bridegroom remains at home with 
his bride a fortnight, and then, "still unable to walk," 



GRACE MURRAY— MRS. VAZEILLE. 



225 



he leaves her, and rides to Bristol. Here he holds a 
conference, which, though sad at the beginning, 
winds up with much rejoicing in God "for the 
consolation." 

Instead of "finding a favor from the Lord" in 
the woman he had made his wife, as he had but 
too fondly hoped, Wesley speedily found that he 
had taken a very bitter cup to his lips. She was 
utterly incapable of appreciating either his great 
character or the grandeur of his work. Accus- 
tomed to rule her first husband, she was soon irri- 
tated at finding herself joined to a man with a 
self-regulated will — a man to whom the obliga- 
tions of duty were of infinitely higher importance 
than the caprices of a wife. Having been long 
accustomed to the comforts, and some of the ele- 
gancies, of domestic life, she speedily rebelled 
against those inconveniences and hardships of 
travel which her new husband suffered almost 
every-where, and looked upon as trifles. Finding 
him proof against her most bewitching endeavors 
to charm him into some abridgment of his exten- 
sive journeys, she became jealous of the grand 



226 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

work to which he was devoted ; foolishly — ay, 
wickedly — regarding it as her rival. For a very 
short time only, she held these bad feelings some- 
what under control ; and then, giving them the 
reins, permitted them to display her true character 
to her astonished and tortured husband. 

She fretted and fumed over the inelegancies 
and discomforts of their places of entertainment 
when traveling; she spoke biting and twitting 
words to her ever-busy but patient companion. 
Finding that he carried on religious correspondence 
with the more pious and active ladies of his soci- 
eties, she admitted the demon of unwomanly jeal- 
ousy into her vulgar soul. This made her furious 
and unendurable. She became her husband's en- 
emy, watching over him for evil, taunting him, 
searching his pockets, opening his letters, stealing 
his papers, robbing him of his money, forging some 
letters, interpolating others, and publishing them for 
the gratification of his enemies. Sometimes she 
dogged his steps, riding many miles to observe 
who was with him in his carriage when he entered 
a town. She even proceeded, at times, to employ 



GRACE MURRAY— MRS. VAZEILLE. 22/ 

personal violence against him. John Hampson, 
Sr., in his "Life of Wesley/' asserts that he once 
entered a room, and saw Mrs. Wesley "foaming 
with fury." Wesley himself "was on the floor, 
where she had been trailing him by the hair of his 
head; and she herself was still holding in her 
hand the venerable locks which she had plucked 
up by the roots !" # 

Do you wonder that Hampson, who was almost 
a giant in size and strength, in speaking of this 
sad scene to his son, said, with more of human 
feeling than of courtly, or even Christian, elegance : 

"Jack, I felt as though I could have knocked 
the soul out of her I" 

Southey, the poet laureate, writing of this bad 
woman, truly says : 

"Fain would she have made him, like Mark 
Antony, give up all for love ; and, being disap- 
pointed in that hope, she tormented him in such a 
manner, by her outrageous jealousy, that she de- 
serves to be classed, in a triad with Xanthippe and 
the wife of Job, as one of the three bad wives." 

* Quoted from Tyerman's "Wesley." 



228 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Job was not more patient than Wesley. The 
painful picture drawn by the pen of Hampson 
might lead one to suppose that he had a craven 
spirit, did we not know that the soul dwelling in 
that prostrate form had often proved itself to be 
of heroic mold. Depend upon it, the man who 
could face furious mobs without trembling, did not 
submit to a virago's blows because he was craven. 
But he was too chivalrous as a man, and too meek 
as a Christian, to return a woman's violence with 
violence. Few men would have endured quietly 
what he suffered. That he bore his conjugal 
wrongs patiently, for the sake of the cause which 
was dearer to him than life, we have no doubt. 
How great a scandal would have fallen upon it, 
could the Fury, who was his wife, have reported 
than he had struck her? One almost regrets that 
the ties of public duty bound his hands. Yet who 
can refuse to honor him for not breaking those bonds ? 

It was thus that he presented his meekness as 
a rock over which the waves of her unbridled pas- 
sions might break, but which they could not sweep 
away. He suffered in silence almost, seldom 



GRACE MURRAY— MRS. VAZEILLE. 229 

speaking of his wrongs, except to his most inti- 
mate correspondents. Occasionally his " sinking 
spirits" sought relief in writing to a pious matron 
about his wife's misconduct — a mistake on his part 
which we can not defend, though, in view of the 
transparent purity and simplicity of his character, 
we can not find it in our heart to censure it very 
severely. 

One act of his attention to his insufferable wife 
affords a beautiful illustration of his forgiving 
spirit. It occurred seventeen years after their 
marriage. Wesley had been traveling and preach- 
ing four months. His journey ends at Bristol, on 
the midnight of Saturday. Scarcely is he out of 
his carriage when he is told that Mrs. Wesley is 
dangerously sick, in London. 

What will he do? In forty-eight hours he has 
to meet his preachers in conference. London is 
one hundred and fourteen miles distant. The 
roads are bad. He needs rest, for he is now an 
old man of sixty-five. The sick woman has been 
the scourge of his life. Will he go to see her? 

Ay, that he will ; for she is his wife, and he can 



230 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

forgive the wrongs she has done him. Horses are 
ordered at once. He rides all the rest of that 
night, nearly all the next day, and, shortly after 
the midnight of Sunday, stands by her bedside. 
She has passed the crisis of her fever, and is better. 
He spends an hour in prayer and sympathy, then 
re-enters his carriage, drives hard all day, and is 
in Bristol again on Monday evening ready to meet 
his conference on the following Tuesday morning. 
Surely, the man who could act thus toward such 
a woman, carried a noble, magnanimous, loving 
heart in his bosom ! A wife capable of estimating 
his character would have idolized him. 

But no kindness that Wesley could offer was 
able to transform that virago into the good wife of 
so great and busy a man. Hence, after quitting 
him several times and returning again, she finally, 
in one of her insane freaks, "set out for New- 
castle, proposing never to return. " 

Wesley offered no objection. He only records 
the fact, and adds : 

" I did not forsake her; I did not dismiss her ; 
I will not recall her." 



GRACE MURRAY— MRS. VAZEILLE. 23 I 

They never met again. Ten years later, she 
died in London, October 8, 1781, while he was in 
the West of England. She bequeathed her prop- 
erty to her son. To Wesley she left a gold ring. 

Our Wesley's marriage cost him thirty years of 
sore and bitter trial. Some have censured him for 
marrying at all; others charge him with hastiness 
in choosing a wife. We can not concur with the 
former critics, because we believe the Divine dec- 
laration — it is not good for man to be alope — was 
as applicable to him as to any other man. As to 
his hastiness, it is difficult to see how he could 
have mended the matter by delay. His itiner- 
ating habits rendered it impossible that he could 
see much of Mrs. Vazeille — or any other lady, 
indeed — before marrying her. Had he seen her 
for a year longer, during his transient visits to 
London, she would have continued, in appearance, 
the same attractive, pensive, pious woman, in his 
eyes, that she did during his previous acquaint- 
ance with her. It was not his hastiness, so 
much as his lack of power to read female charac- 
ter, which led him into the wrong matrimonial 



232 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

net This was one of his few weaknesses, as was 
apparent in his previous courtships, as well as in 
this unfortunate marriage. To this weakness we 
must attribute the grand mistake of his life. 

Yet even this blunder, like the shadow in a 
picture, serves to bring out the grandeur of his 
character into bolder relief. Terrible, consuming, 
and long continued as his matrimonial trials were, 
they did not abate either the number or efficiency 
of his labors a single jot. Under burdens which 
would have borne most men to the earth, or turned 
them aside from their chosen pursuit, he stood 
erect, strong, undismayed, and persistent to the 
end. A happy marriage, perchance, might have 
seduced him into some diminution of his toils. 
To that delightful but dangerous test he was never 
subjected. But he did pass triumphantly through 
the fires of an uncommonly wretched marriage, 
coming out of the dread ordeal without so much 
as the smell of fire on his garments. As from 
Samson's slain lion there came forth honey, so 
out of our Wesley's misjudgment of woman's 
character there came forth surpassing strength. 




Cfykptetf XIV. 

WESLEY'S LAY AND CLERICAL HELPERS. 

|jKljl|:|HE rapid spread of Methodism throughout 
%JKf Great Britain must ever stand among the 
1|p||^ greatest marvels of human history. Had 
* Y A all, or most, who contributed to it as 
preachers, been scholarly, eloquent, and great 
men, like the Wesleys and their early coadjutor, 
Whitefield, it would still have remained a wonder. 
But when it is considered that, excepting these 
and a few clerical sympathizers, who gave it coun- 
tenance and occasional local help, its first preach- 
ers were plain unlettered men, taken from the work- 
ing classes, its marvelousness becomes so stupen- 
dous that we can only stand before the mighty fact 
in amazement and exclaim, "It was God's work!" 
Such a work by such instruments, unaided of 

233 



234 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Heaven, was as impossible as it would have been 
for the stern prophet on old Carmel's summit to 
bring fire upon his offering without Divine inter- 
vention. The might of God working through the 
weakness of man, was the source of Methodistic 
power. 

You must not suppose, however, that Wesley's 
helpers were either fools, idlers, or feeble-minded 
men. On the contrary, they were men of good 
natural endowments, whose hands had been early 
taught to labor, to the neglect, partial at least, of 
their brains. They were diamonds in the rough, 
precious stones uncut and unpolished, until their 
hearts were visited by the grace of God. The 
love of Christ shed abroad in their hearts, quick- 
ened their intellects into energetic life. Feeding 
daily on the strong mental meat of Holy Scripture, 
their understandings, as well as their hearts, grew 
rapidly, and, Wesley himself being judge, they 
speedily acquired power to state and defend the 
doctrines and precepts of the Gospel with a force 
and clearness that few "candidates for holy 
orders " could equal. Added to this, they carried 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 235 

into their work a willingness to suffer, a patience, a 
zeal, and a courage, which may have been equaled, 
but was never excelled, by any class of relig- 
ious laborers in any age. Had the fires of blood- 
stained Smithfield been still burning, there can 
be no doubt that those self-denying men would 
have cheerfully followed their noble leader into the 
flames, and sealed their testimony with their blood. 
Let us glance at some of them, through a few 
representative facts, and learn of what precious 
stuff their souls were made. 

One day the saintly Countess of Huntingdon 
sits listening to a modest young man, who is ex- 
pounding the Word of God to an attentive con- 
gregation. Knowing him to be an unlettered 
person, her ladyship is nervous, fearing lest he 
should mangle instead of explaining the blessed 
Word. But the young man proceeds quietly and 
skillfully with his work. Very soon a telling 
remark seizes her attention. She begins to lose 
sight of the speaker, and to think of his subject 
only. As he goes on, clearing away difficulties, 
bringing out old truths in new lights, brushing 



236 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

aside false interpretations, and pouring over his 
words a gushing tide of tender feeling, her fea- 
tures become fixed, almost rigid, and she sits as if 
"made of wood or stone," so overwhelmed is she 
with astonishment. 

That speaker was Thomas Maxfield. He was 
one of the first, if not the first, of that brave 
army of uneducated lay preachers, with which 
Wesley made his victorious assaults on the king- 
dom of evil in Old England. If not learned in 
theology, he was "mighty in the Scriptures." If 
not ordained by men, he demonstrated his Divine 
call to preach, by his success in winning souls to 
Christ. Like his beloved leader, he had a hero's 
spirit, which enabled him to face savage mobs 
without flinching, and to endure persecution with- 
out complaint. He labored twenty years with 
Wesley, and then, tempted probably by his popu- 
larity and by certain enthusiastic notions which he 
foolishly embraced, he left him, and became pastor 
of an independent congregation in London. He 
finally died in peace. 

At Nottingham, one day, an uproarious mob 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 237 

gathers round the meeting-house, threatening to 
tear it from its foundation. The preacher, a plain, 
hard-handed, earnest man, is seized by the con- 
stable, carried before a magistrate, and charged 
with creating the riot ! After ascertaining the 
name of the accused, the magistrate, evidently 
puzzled by the situation, says : 

"I wonder you can not stay at home. You 
see the mob won't suffer you to preach in Not- 
tingham." 

"Sir," replied the undaunted preacher, with 
ready mother-wit, "I was not aware that Notting- 
ham was governed by a mob. Most towns are 
governed by the magistrates ;" and then he begins 
"to set life and death" before his judge. 

"Don't preach here!" thunders the astonished 
magistrate, interrupting the irrepressible preacher. 

"How shall I dispose of this man?" asks the 
constable. 

" Take him to your house," replies the magis- 
trate. 

The ungodly constable begs to be excused 
from entertaining such a man, lest his house 



238 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

should be used as a chapel ; and, finally, the 
magistrate, not knowing what else to do, says : 

"Take him back to the place from which you 
brought him ; and see to it that he is not hurt !" 

This preacher was honest John Nelson, a 
mason by trade, who, after finding salvation under 
Wesley's preaching in London, had gone back to 
Yorkshire, told the blessed story to his neighbors, 
and led scores of the worst characters to the 
cross. Wesley, seeing such Divine credentials of 
his fitness to preach, made him one of his helpers. 
The good man entered upon the dangerous work, 
trudged to his appointments on foot, worked with 
his trowel by day, to earn his bread, and preached 
evenings and Sundays. He faced mobs with a 
daring equal to that of Wesley himself, suffered 
cruel beatings, was forced for a time into the 
army, imprisoned, and otherwise maltreated. Un- 
appalled by these terrible trials, and even glorying 
in them, this heroic man preached on, and thou- 
sands of souls found rich blessings through his 
herculean labors. Surely, the mettle of the noblest 
manhood was in John Nelson. 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 239 

When Wesley was fifty-two years old, he was, 
one day, shaving himself in a room with one of 
his helpers. Observing that this man was busy 
whittling the top of a stick, he asked : 

"What are you doing, John?'' 

"I am taking your face, sir. I intend to 
engrave it on a copper plate." 

Now, this man had never had any instruction 
in the art of engraving. Nevertheless, he pro- 
ceeded with his whittling, made himself a set of 
engraver's tools, and produced an excellent por- 
trait of his beloved chief. Wesley says of this fact : 

" Such another instance, I suppose, not all 
England, or perhaps Europe, can produce." 

This remarkable genius was John Downes, 
another of Wesley's first helpers. In his boyhood, 
while studying Algebra, he took a sum to his 
teacher, one day, and said : 

" Sir, I can prove this proposition a better way 
than that by which it is proved in the book." 

The teacher thought otherwise, until the boy 
showed him his method, and then he acknowledged 
that it was superior to the one in the text-book. 
16 



24O A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

At another time, this remarkable boy was sent 
to a clock-maker, to get a clock mended. While 
the clock-maker was at work, John watched him, 
observed his tools, and then, going home, actually 
made himself a set, and constructed a clock, 
which went as true as any in the town. No won- 
der Wesley regarded him as being, "by nature, 
full as great a genius as Sir Isaac Newton !" 

Such a mind ought to have been highly edu- 
cated. But it was not. The road to a college was 
not opened to John Downes ; but, happily, the 
door into Christ's kingdom was. He entered that, 
found peace in Jesus, preached long and faithfully, 
faced persecution with heroic courage, endured 
frequent sickness patiently, and finally died in a 
London pulpit. This was, in truth, dying on the 
field of battle, just as a good man, if required to 
choose the manner of his death, might wish to die. 
He was ready for such an end. A day or two 
previous, he had said: 

" I am so happy that I scarce know how to live. 
I enjoy such fellowship with God as I thought could 
not be had this side of heaven. " 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 24 1 

The above examples must be taken as illustra- 
tive of the kind of men Wesley employed to lay 
the foundation-stones of our grand Methodist 
edifice. As already stated, though not college- 
bred, they were generally uncommon men, who 
owed the development of their powers very largely 
to the action of the grace of God upon their hearts 
and brains, and to their own persistent self-culture 
after their conversion. Their weapon was the 
sword of the Spirit, with which they every-where 
hewed down the sturdy Goliahs and the delicate 
Agags who confronted them. The news of their 
spiritual prowess spread consternation among the 
enemies of Christ. Though nearly all in the three 
kingdoms, from drunken gentlemen and drowsy 
priests, both national and dissenting, down to the 
unwashed roughs of the ale-houses, were arrayed 
against them, they marched irresistibly on, guided 
by their illustrious chief, establishing Methodism, 
and quickening the expiring piety of our great 
Father-land ! Surely, they did the Lord's work, 
and it is marvelous in our eyes. 

Our Wesley's enemies have called him "a 



242 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

pope," a "tyrant," and other similar hard names, 
because he directed the labors of his helpers with 
something like absolute authority. In this they 
do him very great injustice. Instead of lording it 
over his preachers, like an irresponsible superior, 
he was a loving father and faithful friend to them 
all. Though, as a gentleman and scholar, he was 
socially far above them, he made them his com- 
panions, eating, lodging, and traveling with them. 
He directed their studies, encouraged them when 
despondent, advised them when in perplexity, 
stood by them when assailed by slanderers, and, 
in short, did every thing that one friend could be 
expected to do for another. He made the wisest 
among them his counselors. So just, so mild, and 
so affectionate was he, that he won their respect, 
confidence, and affection. Even Southey, who, in 
many things, condemns and satirizes him, is com- 
pelled, by his sense of justice, to say: 

"No founder of a monastic order ever more 
entirely possessed the respect, as well as the love 
and admiration, of his disciples." 

It is true that Wesley exercised great authority 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 243 

over his preachers, under a rule which said, "Above 
all, you are to preach when and where I appoint. " 
This rule he enforced as his right, not only because 
it was an initial condition consented to by every 
one of his helpers, but also because he was the 
father, the guide, the governing soul indeed, of 
the societies to whom his assistants were to min- 
ister. Considering the peculiar circumstances and 
character of the great body of his early helpers, 
and of his people, there is little room for doubting 
the fitness, wisdom, and rightfulness of this au- 
thority. But we are free to confess that we should 
admire our noble founder even more than we do, 
had he surrendered at least a measure of this au- 
thority to his conference, when it began to number 
many men of breadth and culture in its ranks, as 
it did years before his decease. He honestly 
thought otherwise, however, and held on to his 
authority, ever tempering it with fatherly kindness 
and exercising it most conscientiously, not for his 
own pleasure, but for the glory of God and the 
good of his beloved societies. Probably no man 
ever administered so great a trust with such 



244 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

singleness of purpose, such purity of motive, such 
freedom from self-will. If, therefore, the retention 
of his authority was a fault, it was amply atoned 
for by the moral grandeur which surrounded its 
exercise. 

Among the few clergymen of the Church of 
England who stood by and assisted Wesley's 
movements, was that genuine knight of the cross, 
William Grimshaw. This remarkable man was a 
graduate of Cambridge, and Curate of Haworth, 
in Yorkshire. For several years after his admis- 
sion to the pulpit he belonged to a class of un- 
converted clergymen, then very large, who loved 
hunting deer and rabbits better than winning men 
to Christ — who preferred the companionship of 
wine-bibbers to the fellowship of saints. But the 
current of his life was changed by a mighty in- 
ward awakening, followed, after three years of 
doubt and fear, by peace, love, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost. Shortly after experiencing this important 
change, he became one of Wesley's assistants, 
effectively superintending two large circuits, though 
without resigning his curacy. 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 245 

This singular genius was a giant in the pulpit. 
He commanded immense congregations wherever 
he appeared, and was often • sublimely eloquent. 
He was laborious as Wesley himself, though in a 
far narrower sphere, sometimes preaching thirty 
times a week. In courage he was an Ajax, stand- 
ing undaunted with his beloved leader amid the 
wild hootings and brutal actions of the most sav- 
age mobs. His charity was perfect, for it extended 
to the expenditure of his last penny for the benefit 
of the needy. His humility was extreme; for he 
often performed such menial services as blacking 
the boots of those itinerants who visited his par- 
sonage, and sometimes giving them his own bed 
while he slept on the hay in his barn ! In some 
things he was very eccentric. Not unfrequently, 
while the people in his church were singing, he 
would descend the pulpit stairs, go into the grave- 
yard and to the adjacent ale-house, and drive or 
persuade idlers and delinquents into church. He 
was also a sort of clerical Haroun al Raschid. 
Like that distinguished caliph, he often disguised 
himself, and went through his parish to learn the 



246 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

real character of his people. On one occasion, 
robed in beggar's rags, he besought charity of one 
of his parishioners, who had somehow won a high 
reputation for charity, and was rudely driven from 
his door! But, notwithstanding these peculiarities, 
he was pronounced, by one who knew him well, to 
be "the most humble walker with Christ" he "ever 
met." "At some seasons," says Wesley, "his faith 
was so strong and his hope so abundant, that 
higher degrees of spiritual delight would have 
overpowered his mortal frame." His death, when 
fifty-five years old, was triumphant, and his burial 
was attended by such a weeping multitude that 
Wesley pronounced it "more ennobling than all 
the pomp of a royal funeral." There is no doubt 
that his herculean labors contributed largely to the 
spread of Methodism in Yorkshire. 

On a Sabbath morning, in 1756, when Wesley, 
overtasked by superabundant labors, was hope- 
lessly longing for some one to assist him in ad- 
ministering the sacrament at the West-street 
Chapel, London, a young minister, fresh from the 
services of his own ordination, came to his aid. 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 247 

"How wonderful are the ways of God !" ex- 
claimed Wesley; "when my bodily strength failed, 
and none in England were able and willing to 
assist me, He sent me help from the mountains 
of Switzerland !" 

This young clergyman, whose timely aid called 
forth this grateful exclamation, was no less a per- 
sonage than the seraphic Fletcher. He owed his 
conversion to Methodism, and richly repaid the 
debt by the extraordinary services he rendered 
its admired chief, whom he loved with the fond- 
ness of a devoted son. He was, indeed, Mr. Wes- 
ley's most valuable clerical friend. Although he 
accepted the living of Madeley, he made his 
kitchen a Methodist chapel, and permitted Wesley 
to organize a society among his parishioners. He 
corresponded with his great leader, and nobly 
stood by him during a disturbance in his London 
societies, on the question of Christian perfection, 
led by Maxfield, Bell, and others, which cost him 
six hundred members in a few months. When 
others stood aloof from him in that storm, Fletcher 
cheered him on, exclaiming : 



248 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

" O, that I could stand in the gap ! Do n't be 
afraid of a wreck, for Jesus is in the ship !" 

But the greatest service he rendered his dis- 
tinguished friend was performed with the pen, in 
the great war waged by the Calvinists against the 
doctrines of Methodism, under the leadership of 
Berridge, Hill, and Toplady. Then Fletcher 
came forward with his famous "Checks." These 
works flash with the brilliancy of rare wit and 
genius, and are swords of Damascus steel, which 
divide the joints and lay bare the creed of the 
ultra-Calvinists in all its horrible deformity. They 
did immense polemic service for Wesley and young 
Methodism, and, should that old controversy ever 
be revived, will serve again as an armory, from 
which new combatants will arm themselves for 
victorious battle. 

But, high as Fletcher stands among polemical 
writers, he is still more highly distinguished for 
his rare piety. Benson, who knew him well, pro- 
nounced him " almost an angel in human flesh." 
So near heaven did he live, that while serving 
as President of Lady Huntingdon's College, at 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 249 

Trevecka, his seraphic soul communicated such a 
flame to the students, that they preferred listening 
to his burning words on religion to the study of 
Virgil or Cicero. They would hang upon his lips 
until their eyes were overflowed with tears. Then 
he would exclaim : 

"As many of you as are athirst for the fullness 
of the Spirit, follow me into my room !" 

The deeply impressed lads would follow him in 
troops. Kneeling around their holy chief, they 
would pray for hours, until they could kneel no 
longer from sheer physical weariness. Several 
times, on these unique occasions, the enraptured 
Fletcher was so filled with the love of God that 
he cried: 

" O, my God, withhold thine hand, or the vessel 
will burst I" 

Wesley desired to make this angelic man his 
successor. Fletcher's humility led him to decline 
this proposed honor. It was well : Fletcher's 
health was unequal to that herculean task. He 
broke down under his parish and other labors, 
vainly sought to recover his health by traveling 



250 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

awhile with Wesley, and then spent a year or two 
in retirement among his friends. 

During his retirement, the Conference of 1777 
met at Stoke Newington. One day, Fletcher, 
emaciated and apparently dying, entered the 
conference leaning on the arm of his host, Mr. 
Ireland. The effect of his presence was electric. 
Every man rose spontaneously to his feet. Wes- 
ley advanced to meet his beloved friend, who at 
once began speaking to the preachers. A few 
words subdued every one present to tears. Fear- 
ing for the speaker's life, Wesley dropped on his 
knees and began to pray. The preachers joined 
him in supplicating that his friend's life might be 
spared a little longer. His faith rose with his 
petitions, and he closed with an emphasis which 
made every heart leap as he said : 

"He shall not die, but live and declare the 
works of the Lord !" 

These were prophetic words. Although Fletcher 
appeared to be already in the hands of the Death 
Angel, he recovered his health, and lived eight 
years longer. He married Miss Bosanquet, did 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 25 I 

much more good service for the Lord, and then died 
(August 14, 1785), exclaiming to his weeping wife: 

"O Polly, my dear Polly, God is love ! Shout, 
shout aloud ! I want a gust of praise to go to the 
ends of the earth!" 

When Wesley was seventy-three years old, 
Thomas Coke, Curate of South Petherton traveled 
twenty miles to see him. This young clergyman 
was a native of Brecon, Wales, and a gentleman 
by birth and education. After graduating at Ox- 
ford, he served as chief magistrate in his native 
city awhile, and then accepted a curacy, though 
as yet unconverted. That good old book, "Al- 
leine's Alarm," awakened him; a Methodist class- 
leader showed him the way to the cross. When 
he sought Wesley's acquaintance, he was about 
twenty-nine years old, short of stature, but remark- 
ably handsome and graceful. He had long dark 
hair, which flowed in curling masses over his shoul- 
ders. His eyes were dark and penetrating, his 
brow white as alabaster, his address and manner 
such as belonged to a man acccustomed to good 
society. What pleased Wesley was not the external 



252 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

man so much as the simplicity and earnestness 
of his spirit. The attraction was mutual. From 
the hour of their meeting they became fast friends. 
The results of their meeting were important on 
both sides. To Wesley, it brought a traveling 
companion for his old age, a confidential adviser, 
a valuable assistant, a trusted friend ; and that, 
too, about the time when Fletcher was laid aside 
by illness. To Coke, it brought an entire change 
in the current of his life. It took him from his 
curacy, made him a traveling preacher, and an 
honored coadjutor to the greatest man of his age. 
It led to his becoming the first superintendent, or 
bishop, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the 
father of those magnificent Wesleyan missions 
which now belt the globe, and the instrument of 
spiritual good to thousands upon thousands of hu- 
man souls. Surely, it was one of those providen- 
tial events of which there were so many in Wesley's 
wonderful career. 

When Wesley was sixty-seven years old, he lost 
his early friend and former coadjutor, the eloquent 




JOHN WESLEY IN MATURE LIFE. 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 253 

Whitefield. This celebrated Christian orator, after 
his temporary alienation from Wesley on account 
of doctrinal differences, regarded him with admir- 
ing friendship to the end of his own life, although 
his labors were in the interests of Calvinistic 
Methodism. He was ever on the wing — now in 
Great Britian, then in America — but every-where 
enchanting thousands with the spells of his mighty 
eloquence, and winning hundreds of dead souls to 
Christ. At last, worn out with thirty-four years 
of incessant labor, having preached eighteen thou- 
sand sermons, he quietly yielded up his life at 
Newburypbrt, Massachusetts, where his remains 
are now buried, on -the morning of September 30, 
1770. The day before, he had preached two hours 
in the open air, at Exeter, New Hampshire, and 
exhorted on the stairs of his lodging at Newbury- 
port, in the evening. The next morning he was in 
heaven. Literally, he died, according to his known 
desire, like a warrior with his armor on. 

Wesley preached his funeral sermon at two 
places, in London, to immense multitudes of 
people, speaking in the highest terms of his zeal, 



254 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

activity, tenderness, frankness, courage, steadfast- 
ness, and other virtues, but generously abstaining 
from allusion to his separation from himself. 
Wesley was great enough both to forgive and for- 
get wrongs done to himself. He had the charity 
which "beareth all things." 

The fruits of Whitefield's peerless labors in 
America were reaped by Churches already exist- 
ing, or left to perish by the wayside. To organ- 
ize — that is, to preserve the results of his work — 
was not that great orator's vocation. With Wes- 
ley it was far otherwise. Nature made him a 
grand organizer. To his mind, the first convert 
in every new field was the nucleus of a so- 
ciety, and every helper a destined " society " 
builder. His genius, at least this feature of it, 
impressed itself upon his followers so deeply, that 
the humblest of them, when thrown by Providence 
into new circumstances, became both workers and 
organizers. To this spirit we must attribute the 
rise and progress of Methodism in America. 

When a coral reef, by gathering to itself the 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 255 

floating weeds and waste of the surrounding ocean, 
becomes fitted to produce vegetation, the kindly 
winds bring to it the light-winged seeds of many 
a beautiful flower. The birds help the winds, 
and bring the weightier seeds of shrubs and trees. 
These take root, and grow • and thus, by the min- 
istries of winds and birds, the barren reef becomes 
a lovely island, clothed with the luxuriant vege- 
tation of the tropics. 

Very similar was the means by which our be- 
loved Methodism was borne from England to 
America. Wafted by the ocean breezes, the mer- 
chant vessel brought over its precious seeds in the 
persons of Philip Embury and Robert Strawbridge, 
two converts of Methodism in the Emerald Isle. 
The latter planted it in Maryland, the former 
in New York. It grew vigorously in both places, 
so that, in 1769, Wesley, by earnest request, sent 
out two traveling preachers — Boardman and Pil- 
moor — to water and cultivate it. Then, like a 
thrifty vine, it soon spread its fruitful branches 
on every side. More workmen were demanded. 
Weslev, though seventy years of age, cherished 
17 



256 A WONDERFUL LIFE 

serious thoughts of venturing across the stormy 
Atlantic. The bare idea alarmed his preachers 
and people. They objected strongly. Said Wesley: 

" If I go to America, I must do a thing which 
I hate as bad as I hate the devil." 

"What is that?" demanded his friend. 

"I must keep a secret" he rejoined. 

But his nature was too frank and transparent 
to permit the concealment of his purpose from his 
confiding people. The idea was abandoned. More 
preachers were sent over ; among them Rankin, 
and Asbury, the grandest character in our Amer- 
ican Methodism. The war of our glorious Revo- 
lution soon drove all these English itinerants back 
again, Asbury excepted. He toiled on, through 
hardships, suspicions, and persecutions, until the 
triumph of our national arms restored peace to the 
country. The Methodists in the United States 
were then nearly fifteen thousand strong, with 
eighty-three traveling preachers. But none of 
these preachers was ordained; and could not, con- 
sistently with the prevailing ideas of Church order, 
administer the sacraments. Asbury wrote to 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 257 

Wesley. He responded by ordaining two of his 
preachers — Whatcoat and Vasey — elders, and set- 
ting apart Dr. Coke, who was already an ordained 
priest or elder of the Church of England, to be a 
superintendent of the work in America. He ap- 
pointed Asbury a superintendent also, giving him 
joint authority with Coke. 

Coke, with his newly ordained elders, soon 
came over, and, after obtaining the consent of the 
American conference, set apart Asbury to the 
office given him by Wesley. The two then or- 
dained other elders, and henceforth our Church 
in America had no difficulty respecting the 
sacraments. 

All this was done with Mr. Wesley's approval. 
True, he was not pleased with his "superintend- 
ents" when they called themselves "bishops" He 
did not like to have the latter name applied to any 
of his preachers. But this was only one of the 
lingering prejudices of his education. Possibly it 
arose out of a fear that its wearers might seek to 
become prelates. He knew that a Scriptural 
bishop is only an elder invested with certain 



258 A WONDERFUL LIFE, 

powers of administration among his brethren, for 
the sake of order. Still he did not like their as- 
sumption of the name, and would, no doubt, have 
been better pleased had Coke and Asbury styled 
themselves simply superintendents. 

Nevertheless, there can be no just questioning 
about the right of the American- preachers and 
people to apply the title of bishops to their chief 
officers. Wesley could not, and did not, after this 
time, claim the same degree of paternal authority 
over them as he could over his societies in the 
mother country, because his instrumentality in 
raising them up was more remote and indirect. 
Certainly, after their organization into a Church, 
they had independent authority — the unchallenged 
right of self-government. They gave respectful 
attention to Wesley's wishes, but did what they 
thought to be best under their circumstances. 
More than this was not his due; and he was too 
wise and good to claim more. It is a curious fact, 
which you would do well to note carefully, that 
the enemies of our Church raise more objections 
to our episcopacy than it ever entered into the 



WESLEY'S HELPERS. 259 

heart of our great founder to conceive. He indeed 
said that men might call him a knave, but never, 
with his consent, should they call him a bishop. 
This was strong language. But, after all, the only 
thing he disliked in it was its name; they hate and 
fear the thing itself ! 




C^kptef XV. 




WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY AND LOVE OF 
CHILDREN. 

fJjOU must not imagine that because our 
Wesley toiled, with all the ardor of his 
^a great soul, for the spiritual interests of 
man, he cared nothing for their bodily com- 
forts. On the contrary, he stood in the front rank 
with the philanthropists of his day, and was one 
of the most charitable of men. The sight of a 
hungry, ragged, or sick body, always stirred his 
tender heart, and moved his ready hand to give 
relief. No poor wretch could ever justly charge 
him with the crime of "passing by on the other 
side." His faith dropped the golden fruit of 
charity into every needy hand it saw. Let us 
select a few examples of his public and private 
charities. 
260 



WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY. 26 1 

At Bristol, one Winter, a severe frost threw 
hundreds out of work; and starvation stood star- 
ing horribly at the door of many industrious house- 
holds. Then Wesley's sympathetic heart moved 
him to take public collections, with the avails of 
which he fed from one hundred to one hundred 
and fifty of the sufferers daily, until the crisis 
passed. 

At another time, during the prevalence of the 
"spotted fever" in the same city, besides minis- 
tering consolation to the sufferers by visiting their 
bedsides at the risk of his own life, he took twelve 
of the poorest people he could find into his meet- 
ing-house, and employed them at carding and 
spinning cotton for four months, thus saving them 
"both from want and from idleness." This was 
both self-sacrificing and inventive charity. 

There was a great frost in 1763, which closed 
the Thames, and threw thousands out of work. 
Multitudes were compelled to beg their bread from 
door to door, and many poor wretches were frozen 
to death in the streets of London. Then, with 
spontaneous and ingenuous charity, our noble 



262 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Wesley threw open the doors of the Foundry, 
and freely distributed "pease-pottage" and u bar- 
ley-broth" to all comers. He also collected five 
hundred dollars from his poor but large-hearted 
society there, for the " further relief of the poor and 
destitute." 

Nor were his public charities limited to ex- 
traordinary occasions. To care for the poor, espe- 
cially those of his own societies, was his habit. 
For many years, he spent the first days of the 
New Year trudging through the mud and slush of 
London streets, often ankle-deep, to solicit sub- 
scriptions from the rich for the benefit of the poor 
who worshiped in his chapels. These subscrip- 
tions often amounted to one thousand dollars. To 
secure the judicious distribution of these funds, he 
not only organized a system of visitation, but he 
often visited the destitute at their homes, "to see 
with his own eye what their wants were, and how 
they might be effectually relieved." His charity 
used its feet as well as its hands. It was as 
painstaking as it was liberal. 

The following illustrations of his more personal 



WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY. 263 

and private charities are very interesting, and give a 
still deeper insight into the beauty of his character. 

When he was quite an old man, during one of 
his tours in Ireland, his chaise stuck in a bog. Leav- 
ing his companions to get it out as best they 
might, he proceeds on foot. Presently he is over- 
taken by a peasant, whose sorrowful looks touch 
his susceptible heart. He inquires into the cause 
of the poor fellow's distress: 

"I owed me landlord twenty shillings, sur," the 
man replies, " and he has turned me and my fam- 
ily out of doors. I've been to see my relations, 
sur ; but not a bit will they help me." 

Forgetful of his own vexations, our charitable 
founder puts his hand into his pocket, takes out a 
guinea, and hands it to the astonished peasant. 
The poor fellow, scarcely knowing what to do, 
drops upon his knees, prays for his benefactor, 
and then, leaping to his feet, exclaims : 

"O, I shall have a house ! I shall have a house 
over my head I" 

Wesley had more, even a poor man's blessing, 
with God's smile, in his heart! 



264 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

One day Wesley stops for refreshment at an 
Irish tavern. On entering the parlor, he sees a 
poor play-actor reclining on a couch in the corner, 
and the stout mistress of the house standing be- 
fore him, bawling and threatening to turn the 
poor fellow and his wife out of doors, because he 
could not pay her for his fortnight's board. The 
dejected face of the poor cowed player touches 
our founder's heart. After questioning the virago 
for the facts, he says to the unhappy man, in very 
pitiful tones : 

"You serve the stage, young man; would I 
could teach you to serve your God ! You would 
find him a better Master. Pardon me, I mean not 
to upbraid you or hurt your feelings." 

Then, putting a guinea into the fellow's hand, 
he adds : 

" My Master sent you this. Retire, and thank 
him !" 

"Who is your Master ?" the actor cries. "Where 
and how shall I thank him ?" 

" God is my Master. Return him thanks !" 

" How ?" 



WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY. 265 

" On your knees when in private ) in public at 
all times, in your principles and in your practice. 
Farewell. Go, comfort your wife and children !" 

The astonished player, unable to speak, ex- 
presses his gratitude in sobs and tears, and quits 
the room. Wesley now turns to the irate land- 
lady, and asks the amount of her claim for the 
poor player's board. 

"Fifteen shillings," she responds. " If he does 
not pay me, I '11 seize his rags up-stairs, and pay 
myself!" 

" I will pay you,". rejoins Wesley, sternly. " But 
what can you think of yourself? How terrible will 
be your condition on your death-bed, calling for 
that mercy which you refuse to a fellow-creature! 
I shudder while under your roof, and will leave it 
as I would the pestilence. May the Lord pardon 
your sins !" 

Then, placing fifteen shillings on the table, he 
leaves the room. The termagant sweeps the 
money into her ample pocket, and jeeringly ex- 
claims : 

" Pardon my sins ? Pardon my sins, indeed ! 



266 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

And why not his own ? I 'II warrant he has as 
much to answer for as I have : getting a parcel 
of people together that ought to be minding their 
work. Why, it was only yesterday that he was 
preaching every body to the devil that encouraged 
the players ; and to-day he is the first to do it 
himself!" 

" This gentleman is a clergyman, I suppose ?" 
remarks one of the spectators. 

"A clergyman I" retorts the virago, with a bitter 
sneer. " Not he, indeed ! It 's only John Wesley, 
the Methodist, that goes preaching up and down, 
and draws all the idle vagabonds of the country 
after him." 

Poor woman ! She could not comprehend the 
beauty of her quondam guest's rare charity. No 
wonder, since multitudes, all over Great Britain, 
who thought themselves wise in their generation, 
were also too blind to perceive the moral grandeur 
of the man who could denounce play-acting and 
pi ay- going in the pulpit, and yet pay a poor starv- 
ing player's tavern-bill ! So they once called the 
" Master of the house " Beelzebub ! 



WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY. 267 

An artist, named Culy, had often requested 
Wesley to sit for his bust, and had as often been 
refused. But, one day, the persevering artist said : 

" Knowing, sir, that you value money as a means 
of doing good, if you will grant my request, I will 
give you ten guineas for the first ten minutes that 
you sit ; and for every minute exceeding that time 
you shall receive an additional guinea." 

" What !" cries Wesley, " do I understand you 
aright? Will you give me ten guineas for having 
my bust taken ? Well, I agree to it" 

Thus you see how the artist found the good 
man's vulnerable side. A single appeal to his 
love of charity carried his point. Many addressed 
to his vanity had utterly failed. But, then, van- 
ity, the vice of little minds, did not enter into the 
texture of Wesley's great character. 

Eight minutes suffices to secure a model of the 
reformer's face, in plaster. Then, after wash- 
ing his face, he accepts the proffered guineas, 
exclaiming : 

"Well, I never till now earned money so 
speedily. But what shall we do with it ?" 



268 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

To settle this question, he sallies forth with his 
friend. They cross Westminster Bridge. There 
they meet a forlorn-looking woman with three chil- 
dren, crying bitterly. Her sad tale informs them 
that her husband has just been dragged to prison 
for a paltry debt of eighteen shillings. One of 
Wesley's easily earned guineas speedily sets her 
husband free, and makes her heart happy. 

Delighted with this loving exploit, Wesley leads 
his friend to a debtor's prison. He is shown a 
man who, for an insignificant debt of ten shillings, 
had been immured within its walls for months. A 
second guinea delivers this unfortunate from the 
iron grasp of his merciless creditor. 

" Gentlemen,'' says the wondering turnkey, " as 
you have come here in search of poverty, pray go 
up-stairs, if it be not too late." 

With swift steps, these angels of mercy ascend 
the stairs, and enter a wretched room. Seated in 
one corner, they see a young man, almost a skele- 
ton ; in the other, a dying woman, lying on some 
straw, with a dead child by her side ! 

" Send for a doctor !" cries Wesley, in tones 



WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY. 269 

which showed that pity and indignation were 
struggling together in his generous heart for the 
mastery. 

The doctor came ; but the woman could not be 
saved. Starvation had finished its horrible work. 
Wesley's remaining guineas gradually brought flesh 
to the bones and health to the cheeks of the un- 
happy widower. But our great philanthropist 
does not stop here. He collects money enough 
among his charitable friends to effect the debtor's 
release. The poor man proves himself worthy of 
this charity ; for he quickly applies himself to 
business, soon pays off his old debts, and then, 
emulating his deliverer, establishes a fund for the 
relief of small debtors. By a singular allotment 
of Providence, the first person aided by this fund 
is the very creditor through whose unmercifulness 
its donor had been kept in prison ! 

These examples of our founder's charity are all 
we have space to record. Think not that such 
deeds were exceptional with him. They were 
rather the daily fruits of his faith. They adorned 
his life from the beginning of his religious career 



270 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

at Oxford, to the day of his exit from the sphere 
of his earthly labors. They consumed all his pe- 
cuniary resources, but made him rich in heav- 
enly treasure. May the reader catch his spirit, 
and show his own faith to the world by similar 
golden deeds ! 

Wesley's sympathies were as broad as the suf- 
ferings of mankind. No man was so low as to be 
beneath his regards, no wickedness so high as to 
escape his censure, no genuine reformer so unpop- 
ular as to stand uncheered by his clarion voice. 
In proof of this, we may mention the fact of his 
avowed hostility to slavery, at a very early period 
in his public career. While his friend Whitefield, 
failing to rise above the ideas of the times, tar- 
nished his fair fame by holding slaves for the 
benefit of his Orphan-house in Georgia ; and 
while, as yet, the voices of Sharpe and Wilber- 
force had scarcely been heard by the leaden ears 
of the British public, our bold, progressive Wes- 
ley, in his own nervous style, fearlessly declares 
the profitable — and then honorable, but now ac- 
cursed — slave-trade to be the "execrable sum of all 



WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY. 27 1 

villainies!" When popular censure thunders its 
terrors round the heads of the bold men who, 
in Parliament, demand the abolition of that hor- 
rid trade, our true, brave-hearted philanthropist 
stands up for them, writes against the "great evil" 
" thoughts that breathe" in "words that burn," and 
uses his great influence among his people in be- 
half of the benevolent cause they advocate. In 
this he showed his avowed hostility to sin, and his 
regard for purity, to be genuine, and no shams. 
Had he defended any one form of sin, who would 
have credited him with sincerity in his professed 
devotion to the work of "spreading Scriptural 
holiness?" 

We might further illustrate his philanthropy by 
telling you of his activity in reviving what was 
called the "Society for the Reformation of Man- 
ners," of his establishment of a "Dispensary" for 
supplying the poor with medicines, and of his co- 
operation with the "Bible Society" and kindred 
institutions. But have we not said enough to sat- 
isfy you that our Wesley ranks as high for his 
philanthropy as for his sublime spirituality? 
18 



272 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Possessing a heart so overflowing with the 
"milk of human kindness," our Wesley could 
scarcely fail to be a lover of children and a friend 
of every movement in their behalf. A few facts 
will show you how he loved them. 

When Robert Southey was a boy, he was in the 
same house with Wesley at Bristol. The sprightly 
boy and his beautiful little sister were running 
down-stairs one morning, when Wesley overtook 
them on the landing. Lifting the sweet girl in his 
arms, the great man kissed her, and then, after 
placing her on her feet again, he put his hand on 
the boy's head, and blessed him. Years after, 
when this boy had become England's famous poet 
laureate, he said, with tears in his eyes and ten- 
derness in his tones : 

"I feel as though I had the blessing of that 
good man upon me still." 

This interesting fact is characteristic. Wesley 
loved children. He showed it not only by such 
little attentions, but by laboring for their educa- 
tion and conversion, from the beginning to the end 
of his remarkable career. 



WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY. 273 

While as yet groping for his own salvation at 
Oxford and Savannah, he organized, supported, 
and visited schools for poor children. After his 
conversion and first spiritual successes, he has- 
tened to found a school at Kingswood for the neg- 
lected children of the colliers, and at the Foundry, 
in London, for the poverty-stricken little ones of 
the neighborhood. The former, after a few years, 
was so modified, as to become a sort of college for 
the sons of his helpers. As such, it made for itself 
a noble record, and became the nursing mother of 
many a historic name in English Methodism. 

In all his educational movements, his chief aim 
was the spiritual welfare of the young. Kings- 
wood was governed with this as its great end. For 
this, also, he, in 1743, wrote his "Instructions for 
Children ;" and, at his first conference, he required 
his preachers " to meet the children in every place, 
and give them suitable exhortations." 

Our founder was no sign-post, but a true man. 
He never affected zeal, nor required of others what 
he was unwilling to do himself. Hence, he kept 
his own instructions, and met the children of his 



274 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

societies wherever practicable. His Journal 
abounds in instances such as the following : At 
Whitehaven he met the children, and five of them 
found peace with God ; at Publow he " spent an 
hour with a company of children in exhortation 
and prayer, and was much comforted with them ;" 
and at Kingswood, "he had much satisfaction 
with the children." 

These meetings were, in very many cases, pro- 
ductive of rich fruit. At Weardale, in Methodist 
families, the greatest part of the children, above 
ten years old, were converted to God. Of one 
hundred and sixty-five persons in the society, 
forty-three were children, thirty of whom were 
found rejoicing in God. At Kingswood, a very ex- 
traordinary work of grace was frequently wrought 
among the boys. Wesley was once the unseen 
witness of a boys' prayer-meeting there. Standing 
at a window outside, he saw first one or two, then 
more and more, until above thirty were gathered 
together. All but three or four were soon on 
their knees, pouring out their souls before God, in 
a manner not easily to be described. Sometimes 



WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY. 275 

one, sometimes more, prayed aloud ; sometimes a 
cry went up from them all. "Such a sight," ex- 
claims the enraptured spectator of this unusual 
scene, " I never saw before I" 

Still more affecting was a scene at Stockton- 
upon-Tees, where over sixty children, between six 
and fourteen years of age, were awakened. As 
the venerable Wesley (he was an old man at this 
time) descended from the pulpit, these children 
literally "inclosed him," falling upon their knees. 
He kneeled down also, and began praying. The 
retiring congregation returned to view this un- 
wonted but beautiful spectacle. A Divine fire was 
kindled, until every heart was touched, and every 
eye filled with tears. Do you wonder that Wesley 
asks, respecting this event : 

"Is not this a new thing. in the earth? God 
begins his work in children." 

It was new then, but not now. But why are 
not such scenes more frequent? Is the Lord's 
hand shortened ? or is the faith of the Church 
weak? 

Wesley's ideas of discipline over children were 



276 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

very rigid ; too much so, doubtless. He had great 
faith in the rod. He exacted too much, and al- 
lowed too little for their natural thoughtlessness. 
Nevertheless, such was the gentleness of his man- 
ner, such the sweetness of his spirit and the mild- 
ness of his aspect, that they loved him, and clung 
to him wherever he went. A fact or two must 
suffice to illustrate this statement: 

During one of his tours in Ireland, as he was 
approaching a place called Killchrist, a little girl 
met and spoke to him. She told him that she had 
sat up all night, and had walked two miles to see 
him. Delighted with her simplicity, he took her 
into his chaise, and was still more pleased to find 
that his enthusiastic little admirer was continually 
rejoicing in God. 

At Ballinderry, one day, when he kneeled in a 
family circle to pray for an uncoverted old lady 
present, a little girl crept, with loving confidence, 
close behind him, weeping and following up his 
prayer, by saying : 

" O grandma, have you no sins to cry for as 
well as me ?" 



WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY. 2jy 

What but love gave this child confidence to 
become a fellow-laborer with so great a man ? 

At Great-Horton. Wesley mounted a horse- 
block for a pulpit, one day ; but no one listened, 
until the children, attracted by his gentleness, 
flocked around him. The people, following their 
example, gathered around them, and he soon had 
a numerous congregation. 

At Oldham there was a unique spectacle, 
which reminds one of that noted scene at Jerusa- 
lem, where the glad little ones sung loud hosannas 
to a greater than Wesley. Children lined the street 
where he was to preach. They ran joyfully around 
and before him, previous to the service. When it 
was over, they closed the venerable preacher in, 
and would not be content until he shook each of 
them by the hand ! 

Such affectionate demonstrations as these, re- 
peatedly occurring, prove that our great founder 
had a soul full of tenderness; for what but a 
heart overflowing with love for children could have 
called out such displays of loving confidence? 

Wesley was one day resting at the house of a 



278 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

gentleman named Bush, the keeper of a boarding- 
school. Two of the pupils had a fierce quarrel, 
fighting and kicking each other furiously. Bush 
separated and led them into the parlor to Mr. 
Wesley. Instead of harshly reproving, he talked 
to them in the kindest manner, concluding his 
remarks with this simple, well-known verse from 
Watts : 

" Birds in their little nests agree : 
And 't is a shameful sight, 
When children of one family 
Fall out, and chide, and fight." 

He then added, with affectionate authority : 

"You must be reconciled. Go and shake 
hands with each other I" 

The boys obeyed without hesitation; and then 
he continued: 

" Now put your arms round each other's neck, 
and kiss each other." 

The subdued boys again did as they were told. 
He next took two pieces of bread from the tea- 
table, folded them together, and told each boy to 
take a part. They did so, and he said : 



WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY. 279 

"Now you have broken bread together." 

His next step was to require them to drink 
some tea out of one cup ; and then, after telling 
them they had both drunk from the same cup, he 
put his hands upon their heads and blessed them. 

The next morning, at prayer-time, he took these 
boys to his arms, and blessed them again. Need 
I add that, after this kind and patriarchal treat- 
ment, these quarrelsome lads were reconciled? It 
could scarcely be otherwise. It was by such a 
union of love with authority that Wesley main- 
tained his almost unexampled influence, not over 
children only, but also over his preachers- and 
people. 

Fourteen years before Robert Raikes began his 
Sunday-school, a young lady named Ball, "a favor- 
ite correspondent " of our founder, began a Sun- 
day-school at High Wycombe. The year follow- 
ing, she thus described it in a letter to Wesley. 
She says : 

" The children meet twice a week, every Sunday 
and Monday. They are a wild little company, but 
seem willing to be instructed. I labor among 



280 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

them, earnestly desiring to promote the interests 
of the Church of Christ" 

We wonder that this letter did not suggest to 
the fertile mind of Wesley the idea of establishing 
Sunday-schools in connection with all his societies. 
But there is no evidence that it did so. Perhaps 
the Church was not then quite ripe for developing 
the institution. Possibly Robert Raikes was bet- 
ter fitted to be God's instrument in securing for it 
the sudden favor it so speedily acquired among 
all denominations a few years later. Be this as it 
may, it is certain that, though Wesley missed the 
honor of founding Sunday-schools, he was wise 
enough to perceive their value and to give them 
his warmest support from the very first. With the 
enthusiasm of a philanthropist, he exclaims: 

"I verily think these Sunday-schools one of 
the noblest specimens of charity which have been 
set on foot in England since the days of William 
the Conqueror!" 

Again, in writing to one of his assistants, he 
says, with prophetic foresight : 

"I am glad you have taken in hand the blessed 



WESLEY'S PHILANTHROPY. 28 1 

work of setting up Sunday-schools. It seems these 
will be one of the greatest means of reviving relig- 
ion throughout the nation." 

And again he exclaims, with joyous hope : 
"Who knows but some of these schools may 
become nurseries for Christians ?" 

It is claimed that Wesley gave the Sunday- 
school its most beautiful and valuable feature — 
gratuitous instruction. It is certain that he had 
a very successful Sunday-school in his society at 
Bolton, only two years after Robert Raikes estab- 
lished his at Gloucester, and that its teachers " all 
gave their services gratuitously." It is equally 
certain that the practice, then prevailing outside 
of his societies, was to pay Sunday teachers for 
their services. It is also very certain that he gave 
to the teaching in his Sunday-schools a more 
decidedly religious character than that which gen- 
erally prevailed. Secular instruction, with a little 
divine truth thrown in, was then the rule in most 
other Sunday-schools. In his, the Word of God 
was the teacher's chief theme ; the salvation of the 
child's soul his first object. Hence, it is more 



282 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

than probable that to him belongs the honor of 
introducing that element of benevolent teaching 
service into the Sunday-school, which adorns it with 
its greatest moral beauty, and is the chief source 
of its efficiency and perpetuity. 

Do not these few typical facts concerning the 
relations of our founder to the children of his 
generation, justify us in asking for his. memory a 
warm place in the hearts of the young people of 
this age ? 




Cfykptef XVI. 




WESLEY'S COURAGE AND ACTIVITY. 

£UR great founder was a brave man. His 
nerves did not tremble, nor his heart beat 
out of time, when danger confronted him. 
Here is an example of his physical courage. 
He was on his way to St. Ives. On reaching 
Hayle, his postilion, finding the sands over which 
they must needs pass overflowed by the rising tide, 
stops his horses, being reluctant to face so great 
a danger. Seeing the carriage stop, a sea-captain 
steps up, and says to the driver : 

"You had better not attempt to cross the sands 
until the tide goes out." 

Wesley, hearing the remark, replies : 
"I have to preach at St. Ives this afternoon. 
I must keep my appointment." 

283 



284 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Then, putting his head out of the carriage win- 
dow, he shouts to the driver, who is mounted on 
one of the horses : 

" Take the sea ! Take the sea !" 

Encouraged by this electrical cry, the driver 
dashes into the foaming waves. He is soon in 
deep water. The horses are compelled to swim; 
the carriage-wheels sink into ruts and hollows in 
the sands ; the horses, affrighted by the splash and 
roar of the waves, snort and rear in most fearful 
style. The driver is almost swept from his saddle, 
and is only kept from despair by thinking that on 
him depends the life of the holy man in the car- 
riage. He carried Wesley — a greater than Caesar — 
and his fortunes. 

At the height of the peril, the voice of Wesley 
reaches the' disheartened postilion's ear. Turning 
round in his saddle with difficulty, he sees Wes- 
ley's head protruding from the carriage-window. 
His long locks are dripping, but his face is as 
calm and his voice as firm as if no danger were 
nigh. He asks : 

"What is thy name, driver?" 



WESLEY'S COURAGE AND ACTIVITY. 285 

" Peter, sir," shouts the man. 

" Peter, fear not. Thou shalt not sink," re- 
sponds the fearless Wesley. 

The driver is encouraged. With whip, spur, 
and voice he urges his horses on. The point of 
danger is soon safely passed, and in due time 
they reach the inn at St. Ives. 

No sooner is Wesley out of the carriage than 
he orders change of clothing, fire, and refreshment, 
not for himself, but for the faithful Peter. He 
next sees that his horses are faithfully groomed 
and otherwised cared for, and then, forgetful of 
his own comfort and punctual to his appointment, 
he proceeds in his wet clothing, and without stop- 
ping to take food, to the church, where he preaches 
with his wonted energy and power. 

This incident is characteristic. W T esley's phys- 
ical courage never failed in any of his manifold 
perils. Such bravery is quite as rare as the con- 
siderateness and self-forgetfulness which accom- 
panied it. Had Wesley been a soldier, he would, 
like Nelson and Napoleon, have stood unmoved 
amid the rage of battle. Though he had the 



286 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

sensibility of a woman, his nerves were as iron, in 
the presence of danger. 

More fierce than the raging waters were the 
mobs which, as you have seen, frequently assailed 
Wesley in the early years of his itinerant career. 
In those times the lower orders w r ere ignorant, 
coarse, brutal, almost savage. Esquires and gen- 
tlemen were cruel and bitter in their hatreds. The 
former class, goaded by the latter and inspired by 
Satan, often sought by violent acts to hinder Wes- 
ley and his coadjutors from preaching the truth 
which was turning the religious world upside down. 
The heroic demeanor with which our brave Wesley 
faced these turbulent crowds, appears in the fol- 
lowing facts : 

He had preached at Wednesbury, in Stafford- 
shire, without molestation, and with blessed results. 
Hundreds of colliers were saved. After his de- 
parture, the parish minister, taking offense at the 
zeal of these converts, stirred up the dregs of the 
people to attack them. They did so, the magis- 
trates winking at their unlawful proceedings. For 
nearly five months they treated the Methodists 



WESLEY'S COURAGE AND ACTIVITY. 287 

like mad dogs, beating them, pelting them with 
stones, dragging them through the gutters, break- 
ing their windows, destroying their furniture, and 
threatening their lives. At length, Wesley, hear- 
ing of these outrageous proceedings, hastens to 
the scene of danger. Bravely bearding the lion, 
he preaches boldly at noon, in the middle of the 
town, to a vast congregation. Not a tongue wags, 
not a finger is raised against him. But in the 
evening, the rabble gathers in mighty strength, 
and, surrounding the house in which he is lodged, 
ferociously shouts: 

"Bring out the minister! We will have the 
minister !" 

Serene and unawed, Wesley, pointing at the 
leader of the mob, says to one of his friends : 

"Take that man by the hand, and bring him 
into the house." 

Wesley's self-command and authoritative air 
awes the ringleader of the mob. He suffers him- 
self to be led within the door. Wesley then says 
to him : 

" Bring in one or two of those angry fellows !" 
19 



288 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

The fellow obeys, and brings in two of his 
companions. They, too, are speedily quieted by 
a word or two from Wesley, who finally says to 
them : 

"Make way for me. I want to go out to the 
people.'' 

They obey him, and he goes forth like a lamb 
amid wolves, mounts a chair, and asks : 

"What is it you want with me, my good 
friends ?" 

" Go with us to a justice," reply several voices. 

"With all my heart," he rejoins, adding a few 
other remarks, which have such a marvelous effect 
that many of the people cry : 

"The gentleman is honest. We will spill our 
blood in his defense." 

They now proceed, through the mud, rain, and 
darkness of an October evening, to Bentley Hall, 
two miles distant, and the home of a magistrate 
named Lane. 

"We have brought Mr. Wesley before your 
worship," say several fellows, who had preceded 
the main body of the mob. 



WESLEY'S COURAGE AND ACTIVITY. 289 

Afraid, probably, of dealing with open injustice 
toward a man of Wesley's national reputation, 
Lane responds : 

"What have I to do with Mr. Wesley? Go 
and carry him back again." 

But the mob persists. Mr. Lane must see Mr. 
Wesley. He declines ; but his son comes out, and 
asks : 

"What is the matter, friends ?" 

"Why, an"t please you," replies the spokesman 
of the mob, "they sing psalms all day; nay, and 
make folks rise at five in the morning. And what 
would your worship advise us to do?" 

"To go home and be quiet," is the sensible 
response of young Lane. 

Here this farce would have ended, but for a 
proposal from one of the mob to go to another 
justice in the neighboring village of Walsal. This 
changes the affair into almost a tragedy ; for the 
Walsal rabble, hearing that Wesley is among 
them, rush fiercely out to find him. But, by 
this time, some fifty of the first mob have been so 
won over by Wesley's grand demeanor, that they 



29O A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

have become his defenders. A fight ensues. The 
Walsal men conquer, and Wesley is left to the 
tender mercies of the infuriated conquerors. Their 
noise is like £he roaring of the sea. They try to 
throw him down in the mud that they may trample 
him to death. But he resolutely keeps on his feet. 
They tear his clothes. One man tries to hit him 
on the head with a bludgeon, but happily misses 
his victim. Another gives him a blow in the 
mouth, which makes the rjlood gush out. They 
pull his long, beautiful hair. When he asks per- 
mission to speak, they shout : 

" No, no ! Knock his brains out. Down with 
him, kill him at once. Crucify the dog, crucify 
him 1" 

At last he obtains a hearing, and, with absolute 
self-command, addresses them in a strong persua- 
sive voice. He then breaks forth in prayer to 
God. The rabble yield to his power. Their 
leader, a noted prize-fighter, suddenly exclaims : 

" Sir, I will spend my life for you ! Follow me, 
and not one soul here shall touch a hair of your 
head." 



WESLEY'S COURAGE AND ACTIVITY. 29 1 

This turns the tide in his favor. A man cries, 
" For shame, for shame — let him go !" The rab- 
ble now fall back. The prize-fighter leads our 
bruised but triumphant Wesley back to his lodg- 
ings at Wednesbury. The mob is conquered ; and 
henceforth Methodism grows, undisturbed by pop- 
ular violence, in that town. 

Many more such facts as this, and kindred 
ones, already related, might be given, did space 
permit, to show that our Wesley was rarely en- 
dowed with both physical and moral courage. 
This virtue, sustained by an unshrinking faith in 
God, made him one of the most heroic men of his 
own or any other times — an uncrowned king of men. 

From the time of Wesley's first journey to the 
north of England to the end of his days, the exi- 
gencies of his ever-expanding work required him 
to be almost constantly traveling from place to 
place. He traversed every part of the country, 
from the " Land's-End," in Cornwall, to the High- 
lands of Scotland. He crossed the Channel to 
Ireland. Ever on the wing, he traveled some 



292 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

forty-five hundred miles, and preached about eight 
hundred times, per annum. These journeys were 
not made in comfortable railway-cars moving with 
the fleetness of birds, but on horseback, and, in 
his later years, in his private carriage. Besides 
preaching, he wrote an almost fabulous amount 
of matter; published innumerable tracts, pam- 
phlets, and books ; visited the sick ; met the so- 
cieties and bands ; addressed the Sunday-schools \ 
looked after the poor ; collected money for the 
erection of churches, superintended the construc- 
tion of his chapels, and presided at his annual 
conferences. He was always busy with God's 
work, from four o'clock in the morning until ten 
at night, his hour for retiring. He read on horse- 
back, and wrote in his carriage. When not travel- 
ing, he never spent less than three hours — some- 
times nine or ten — alone in literary labor. Thus, 
you see, he was never idle, never triflingly employed, 
never at rest, except during the six hours he al- 
lotted to sleep. As to " Summer vacations," they 
did not enter into his thoughts. The work of God 
was his meat and drink, change of scene his only 



WESLEY'S COURAGE AND ACTIVITY. 293 

repose. If imperfect in some things, he was cer- 
tianly perfect in his activity, and set the world an 
example of diligence in the improvment of time 
which some may hope to equal, but which none 
can surpass. 

To appreciate fully the virtue of his peerless 
physical activity, you must keep in mind the fact 
that it resulted not from natural taste, but from a 
sense of duty. It was the perpetual offering of a 
loving heart to its Savior. His tastes strongly 
inclined him, at the beginning, to a quiet literary 
life in the cloisters of his beloved Oxford, or in 
some secluded vale of beautiful England. These 
tastes, though curbed in by his unyielding will, 
often made themselves felt. Hence, when spend- 
ing a day or two at Miss Bosanquet's charming 
retreat, we hear him exclaim : 

" How willingly could I spend the residue of 
a busy life in this delightful retirement ! But, 

* Man was not born in shades to lie ;' " 
and 

"Up and be doing] Labor on till 

* Death sings a requiem to the parting soul.'" 



294 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

When at the secluded village of Finstock, he 
writes : " How many days should I spend here if 
I was to do my own will ! Not so ; I am to do 
the will of Him that sent me, and to finish his 
work." 

At another visit to the same lovely spot, he 
writes again : " How gladly could I spend a few 
weeks in this delightful solitude ! But I must not 
rest yet. As long as God gives me strength to 
labor, I must use it." 

Again, when at Hinxworth, he half-sadly ex- 
claims : " How gladly could I repose awhile here ! 
But repose is not for me in this world." And at 
still another lovely place, he writes: "I found a 
natural wish, O for ease and a resting place ! 
Not yet, but eternity is at hand." 

In these yearnings after a respite from inces- 
sant toil, we hear the voices of our laborious Wes- 
ley's taste and temperament. His responses un- 
veil the motive of his activity. It was the glorious 
outgrowth of his loving self-consecration to his 
Redeemer's work. He used up all the forces of 
his mind and body in active Christian work, not 



WESLEY'S COURAGE AND ACTIVITY. 295 

because he loved the toil, but because the needs of 
his beloved Savior's cause required it at his hands. 

Wesley was a great economist of time. He 
never wasted a moment. Few things ruffled him 
as did the loss of minutes, through lack of punct- 
uality in others. Having 'appointed a breakfast 
meeting at three o'clock in the morning with a 
friend in York, he said to his coachman : 

"Have the carriage at the door at four. I do 
not mean a quarter or five minutes past, but four." 

The man understood his master, and, while the 
minster clock was striking four the next morning, 
Wesley was stepping into his chaise. 

This punctuality pleased him. But on one occa- 
sion, when an unpunctual man had kept him wait- 
ing, he said sharply : 

" I have lost ten minutes forever !" 

To one who once said, " You need not be in a 
hurry, sir," he replied : 

"A hurry ! No : I have no time to be in a 
hurry." 

Few men had a greater number of cares rest- 
ing upon him than Wesley. Being the center and 



296 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

source of authority to preachers and people, he 
was incessantly applied to for advice, help, and 
interference, both personally and by letter. Wher- 
ever he tarried, his lodgings were besieged with 
callers, like the office of a minister of state. 
He had to listen to complaints, adjust differences, 
redress grievances, administer discipline, examine 
the financial and spiritual condition of his socie- 
ties, counsel the embarrassed, comfort the sorrow- 
ful, encourage the desponding, strengthen the 
weak, and raise up the fallen. And all this daily, 
year after year, the number of his cares increasing 
as he grew older. What a mighty task ! What a 
constant strain upon his attention, his patience, his 
nervous system ! How could he endure it all ? 

Two causes operated in his favor. First, his 
mind was always calm, self-poised, and self-pos- 
sessed. Nothing irritated him. He allowed noth- 
ing to chafe him. Said he, one day: 

"I feel and grieve; but, by the grace of God, 
I fret at nothing." 

He possessed another self-preserving element 
in his power to cast care to the winds. He did 



WESLEY'S COURAGE AND ACTIVITY. 2Q7 

not brood over his vexations and troubles. Said 
he, on one occasion : 

"Ten thousand cares of various kinds were 
no more weight or burden to my mind than ten 
thousand hairs were to my head." 

Such superiority as this is the attribute of a 
great mind. Inferior men, like overladen vessels, 
strain and fret themselves against the waves which 
beat around them ; but Wesley, like a majestic 
steamship, moved calmly on through his countless 
duties and annoyances. The indwelling God and 
his native mental strength gave him the mastery. 




C^kptef XVII. 



OLD AGE, DEATH, A*ND CHARACTER. 

iM^llr E V ^° r °** Wesle y' s Physical constitution 
ffllilf was rea % wonderful. Instead of bowing 
W*&$ as near ty a ^ men do, under the weight of 
a y i "three-score years and ten," he rose under 
it with renewed strength, like a giant "refreshed 
with new wine." He was a wonder both to his 
friends and to himself. "How is this?" he ex- 
claims, when seventy-one, "I find just the same 
strength as I did thirty years ago. .My sight is 
considerably better now, and my nerves firmer 
than they were then. I have none of the infirmi- 
ties of old age, and have lost several I had in my 
youth." 

Seven years afterward he rejoiced in feeling 
"just the same as when he entered his twenty- 
298 



OLD AGE, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 299 

eighth year." When four-score, he declared that 
he found "no more infirmities than when he was 
in the flower of manhood." Two years later, this 
silver-haired, active, marvelous old man, though 
still traveling, preaching, writing, and reading as 
busily as when in his prime, solemnly declares : 

"It is now eleven years since I have felt any 
such thing as weariness !" 

When he is eighty-four, the finger of decay 
makes itself felt for the first time ; and at his 
entrance upon his eighty-fifth year he confesses: 

" I am not so agile as I was in times past. I 
do not run or walk as fast as I did. My sight is 
a little decayed. ... I find some decay in 
my memory with regard to names and things lately 
past; but not at all with regard to what I read or 
heard twenty, forty, or sixty years ago." 

On his eighty-sixth birthday he fairly succumbs 
to the spirit of mortality, and says, half sadly : 

" I now find I grow old. My sight is decayed, 
so that I can not read small print, unless in a 
strong light. My strength is decayed, so that I 
walk much slower than I did some years since." 



300 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

Still this trembling old man continued to per- 
form an amount of work which would make the 
young men of our degenerate age "groan, being 
burdened." He still preached two sermons a day 
and for a time resumed his old practice of preach- 
ing at five o'clock in the morning ! 

A year later he writes : " I am now an old 
man, decayed from head to foot." Still his im- 
perial mind sustained him, and, though his tongue 
was daily parched with fever, and his feet almost 
touched the shore of the river of death, he rejoic- 
ingly exclaims : 

" Blessed be God ! I do not slack my labors ! 
I can preach and write still." 

This marvelous vigor Wesley ascribed to the 
peculiar care of God. His active and temperate 
habits, especially his five o'clock morning preach- 
ing, he contended, had much to do with it, but 
God's special care much more. "The grand 
cause" he said, " is the good pleasure of God, who 
doeth whatsoever pleaseth him. ... I dare 
not impute this to natural causes. It is the will 
of God!" 



OLD AGE, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 3OI 

No doubt skeptics will sneer, and contend that 
one man's life, is as precious as another's in the 
sight of God. In a general sense, it is so; but no 
Christian will question that God throws a shield 
of especial protection round such great instru- 
ments of his providence as Luther, Zwingle, and 
Wesley, so that they are "immortal till their work 
is done." 

No mean proof of a specially Divine care over 
Wesley's life is contained in the fact that the vigor 
of his old age was developed from a weak youth- 
ful constitution. So far from being robust in his 
early manhood, he tells us that, when twenty-seven, 
he "began spitting blood, which continued several 
years." His trip to Savannah cured this incipient 
consumption, but he was afterward " brought to 
the brink of death by a fever." Eleven years 
later, he was in "the third stage of a consump- 
tion," which in " three months," he tells us, " it 
pleased God to remove." When he was seventy 
years old, a cold prostrated him for nine days, 
during which his "palate and throat was greatly 
inflamed ;" he could swallow " neither liquids nor 



302 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

solids," and his "windpipe seemed nearly closed." 
Two years later, he had a dangerous illness occa- 
sioned by sleeping on the ground in an orchard, in 
hot weather. After lying insensible and "more 
dead than alive " several days, he recovered from 
this fever with "extraordinary rapidity." At about 
the same period he was so reduced by a serious 
hurt, caused by a stumbling horse throwing him on 
the pommel of his saddle, that one of his preach- 
ers — John Pawson — wrote, in 1773, Mr. Wesley 
"seems to be declining very fast; and I think 
there is great reason to fear that he will not be 
with us long." 

Could a man, so seemingly fitted to be the vic- 
tim of pulmonary consumption when in the prime 
of his manhood, become so marvelously vigorous 
in old age, and that, too, while doing work gigan- 
tic enough to break down the strongest of ordinary 
men, from natural causes alone? The regularity 
of his habits, his temperance in eating and drink- 
ing, his constant exercise in the open air, the fact 
that in seventy years he "never lost one night's 
sleep," and that he could sleep immediately, 



OLD AGE, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 303 

whenever he willed, may partly, but can not wholly, 
account for it. Surely, our Wesley was correct in 
ascribing the " grand cause " of his vigor to " the 
good pleasure of God." It was a striking prov- 
idential miracle ! 

One's wonder is heightened when he sees how 
frequently Wesley's journeys and hardships thrust 
him into the very jaws of death. The number 
and frequency of his hair-breadth escapes are 
astonishing. His rescue from the flames in child- 
hood, you will readily recall. At one time, while 
he was in Georgia, a barge on which he was 
sleeping sunk at her anchorage, and he was 
awakened by the water flowing into his mouth ! 
He was several times thrown over his horse's 
head while riding. Once his horse sunk in an 
Irish bog up to its shoulders. His frequent 
escapes from mob violence were romantically mar- 
velous. When seventy-nine years old, he fell head- 
long down the stairs of Dr. Douglas's house, in 
Kelso, Scotland, but escaped without serious injury. 

After one of his visits to his native town, he 

had to cross the river Trent during a terrible 
20 



304 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

storm. The boat had several passengers and three 
horses on board. She rolled so badly that, when 
in the middle of the stream, one side was under 
water, and men and horses were thrown down and 
mingled together in terrible confusion. Wesley 
was forced beneath an iron bar, and helplessly 
pinned down. Humanly speaking, there was 
little chance of his ever reaching the shore alive. 
But, at the critical moment, the horses, moved by a 
providential instinct, sprang overboard, the boat 
righted, and our Wesley was once more snatched 
from the mouth of death. 

He had still another most marvelous escape, 
when seventy-one years of age, while riding in a 
carriage from Newcastle to an adjacent village. 
Mrs. Smith, his wife's daughter, and her two chil- 
dren, were with him. On reaching the brow of a 
hill, the horses, without any apparent cause, sud- 
denly ran away. They " flew down the hill like 
an arrow." In a minute, the driver fell off the box. 
The horses then went on full speed, sometimes to 
the edge of the ditch on the right, sometimes on 
the left. A cart came up against them; they 



OLD AGE, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 305 

avoided it as exactly as if the man had been on 
the box. A narrow bridge was at the foot of the 
hill ; they went directly over the middle of it. 
They ran up the next hill with the same speed ; 
many persons meeting them, but getting out of the 
way. Near the top of the hill was a gate which 
led into a farmer's yard. It stood open. They 
turned short and ran through it, without touching 
the gate on one side, or the post on the other. 
"I thought," says Wesley, "the gate which is on 
the other side of the yard, and is shut, will stop 
them; but they rushed through it, as if it had 
been a cobweb, and galloped on through the corn- 
field. The little girls cried out, ' Grandpapa save 
us !' I told them, ' Nothing will hurt you ; do 
not be afraid f feeling no more fear or care than 
if I had been sitting in my study. The horses ran 
on until they came to the edge of a steep precipice. 
Just then, Mr. Smith [his son-in-law], who could 
not overtake us before, galloped in between. They 
stopped in a moment. Had they gone on ever 
so little, he and we must have gone down together !" 
The extraordinary action of these runaway 



306 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

horses led Mr. Wesley to conclude "that both 
evil and good angels had a large share in this 
transaction. " Possibly they did. Certainly, the 
Lord's hand was in it, directly or indirectly; and 
Wesley was both wise and grateful in exclaiming : 

" Let those give thanks whom the Lord hath 
redeemed, and delivered from the hand of the 
enemy." 

His Winter journeys on horseback to the 
North of England were often extremely trying 
and dangerous. Sometimes the roads were so slip- 
pery that his horse could scarcely keep its feet, 
and frequently fell on the icy roads. He writes 
of one of these trips : " Many a rough journey 
have I had before ; but one like this I never had, 
between wind and hail, and rain and ice and 
snow, and driving sleet and piercing cold. But 
it is past ; those days will return no more, and 
are therefore as though they had never been." 

And yet, through all this, he had pushed for. 
ward, with the unflinching steadiness of a veteran 
moss-trooper, over some two hundred and eighty 
miles, at the rate of nearly fifty miles a day ! But 



OLD AGE, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 307 

similar days did return, again and again, through 
more than forty Winters ; and the most insensible 
reader of his Life can not help constantly wonder- 
ing how he escaped from the manifold and varied 
perils he almost daily encountered. The only 
satisfactory way of accounting for the preservation 
of his charmed life, is to say, in his own devout 
spirit, " It was the will of God !" 

When Wesley was eighty-five years old, he 
was called upon to part with his beloved brother 
Charles. He was in Shropshire when the poet 
died, and was therefore denied the melancholy 
privilege of closing his eyes. It is a curious fact, 
that at the moment of the great hymnist's happy 
death, his brother's congregation, many miles away, 
was singing: 

"Come, let us join our friends above, 
That have obtained the prize, 
And, on the eagle wings of love, 
To joys celestial rise. 

One army of the living God, 
To his command we bow ; 
• Part of his host have crossed the flood, 
A?id part are crossing noiv." 



308 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

That our venerable patriarch felt his brother's 
death very keenly, was shown shortly after at Bol- 
ton. He was giving out, for his second hymn, 
the one beginning with, "Come, O thou Traveler 
unknown!" When he came to the lines, 

" My company before is gone, 
And I am left alone with thee," 

the thought of his bereavement overpowered him. 
He "burst into a flood of tears, sat down in the 
pulpit, and hid his face in his hands." 

The sight of the silvery-haired patriarch con- 
quered by grief, so touched the congregation that 
the place became a valley of tears. The sermon 
that followed this scene was never forgotten by 
those who heard it. 

Wesley survived his brother only three years. 
The leaden weight of four-score and eight years 
hung heavily upon his slender frame ; but his spirit 
struggled to the last, as with the freshness of 
youth, to bear up the decaying body, and to main- 
tain it in its now wearisome round of duties. At 
length the mortal triumphed, and Wesley began to 



OLD AGE, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 309 

feel, but not to fear, that the hour of his departure 
was at hand. 

Worn out in his blessed work, but not wearied 
of it, the venerable Father of Methodism preaches 
his last sermon in the kitchen of a magistrate at 
Leatherhead, eighteen miles from London, only- 
seven days before taking his last long sleep. Two 
days after, he is taken to his home in City Road, 
London, and then his friends begin to fear that his 
great work is finished. He is drowsy much of the 
time, but in the intervals of wakefulness is cheer- 
ful and happy. While sitting up, on Sunday, he 
repeats these lines: 

"Till glad I lay this body down, 
Thy servant, Lord, attend ! 
And O, my life of mercy crown 
With a triunphant end !" 

Shortly after, in answer to a question put by 
Miss Ritchie, he says : 

" Christ is all ! Christ is all !" 

The next day his alarmed friends have no 
doubt that the veteran warrior is about to "doff 
his armor." They tremble with apprehension ; but 



3IO A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

he is happy, when not asleep. The day preceding 
his departure, he sings the hymn commencing, 

"All glory to God in the sky, 
And peace upon earth be restored." 

Though his feet are wet with the cold waters 
of the river of death, his thoughts are still on the 
spread of the kingdom of God. Presently, his 
voice failing, he says, softly: 

" I want to write." 

They give him a pen ; but his trembling fingers 
can no longer give expression to his thoughts; 
and, letting the pen drop, he whispers: 

"I can not." 

"Let me write for you. Tell me what you 
wish to say," says Miss Ritchie, affectionately. 

"Nothing, but that God is with us," he replies ; 
and then he adds: 

"I will get up." 

While they are preparing his clothes, the tri- 
umphant old soldier sings : 

"I'll praise my Maker while I 've breath," etc.; 
and when seated in his chair he whispers : 



OLD AGE, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 3 1 1 

"Lord, thou givest strength to those that can 
speak, and to those that can not. Speak, Lord, to 
all our hearts, and let them know that thou loosest 
tongues." 

After this, he sings these words : 

" To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
Who sweetly all agree." 

Here his voice fails. He has sung his last 
song on earth, and, after gasping for breath, he 
whispers : 

" Now we have done. Let us all go." 

Again he sleeps. When he awakes, he gives 
the key-note of his happy frame, exclaiming : 

"Pray and praise !" 

They obey him by offering prayer and singing. 
By and by he shakes hands with all present, and, 
with beaming eyes and happy voice, wishes each 
one " Farewell !" 

Presently his soul seems to burn with seraphic 
gratitude, and, in a strong, clear voice, which 
sounds almost like the voice of an angel, he 
exclaims : 

"The best of all is, God is with us!" 



312 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

And then, after a brief pause, he waves his 
arm triumphantly, and repeats the joyous words: 

"The best of all is, God is with us!" 

Another night of gradually declining strength, 
during which he frequently repeats his glad key- 
note, " Pray and praise," and then his hour strikes. 
Eleven of his friends stand, with weeping eyes and 
throbbing hearts, watching round his bed. At 
ten o'clock, on Wednesday, March 2, 179 1, this 
worn-out hero of unnumbered spiritual battles 
cries, "Farewell!" and then the "silver cord is 
loosed," the "golden bowl" is broken, and his 
aspiring spirit ascends to its reward. 

A beautiful death ! There was no fear, terror, 
resistance, or sadness in it; nothing but calm 
courage, grateful love, implicit trust, and joyful 
hope — a glorious end to a grand life. 

It is scarcely too much to say, that not only all 
London, but all England, was moved as the tidings 
of our Wesley's death spread from lip to lip ; for, 
while the tens of thousands in his societies loved 
him, people of all classes had learned to reverence 
his great character, and to look with respectful 



OLD AGE, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 3 I 3 

wonder on the ecclesiastical structure which had 
risen, almost unbidden, under his hands. Such 
was the sensation in London, that, to prevent the 
gathering of an unmanageable multitude at his 
funeral, his friends resolved, twelve hours before 
the time, to inter him at the unusual hour of five 
in the morning. Even at that early hour, and 
♦with notices carefully limited, hundreds were pres- 
ent to witness his burial, behind the City-road 
Chapel. 

The "Story of a Wonderful Life" is ended. 
The despised " Father of the Holy Club," the 
persecuted itinerant, the hard-working founder of 
Methodism, has become a glorified saint in heaven ! 

Wesley must be ranked with minds of the high- 
est class. Perhaps his most distinguishing quality 
was " his genius for government," which, as Macau- 
lay put it, "was not inferior to that of Richelieu." 
But he also excelled in all other high qualities. 
His character was eminently symmetrical and ad- 
mirably rounded. He had profound powers of 
reflection ; was very clear in his perceptions ; 
had rare logical ability and sound judgment — an 



314 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

extraordinary memory, a fine imagination, a keen 
wit, and very correct taste. His courage was he- 
roic, his sympathies quick, deep, and exquisitely 
tender; his patience was unwearied, his meekness 
rare, his humility beautiful, his charity perfect, his 
persistence unconquerable. He was temperate in 
all things, and in self-denial he was almost an an- 
chorite. His passions and appetites were held in 
by an iron will. His cheerfulness was inexhaust- 
ible, his manner courteous, his industry unsur- 
passed. His life was unspotted, his piety deep 
and unobtrusive. That he loved God with all 
his heart, is evident from his daily acts of faith 
and love ; but as the devoted Bradburn said : 

" His modesty prevented him saying much con- 
cerning his own religious feelings. In public he 
hardly ever spoke of the state of his own soul ; 
but, in 1 78 1, he told me that his experience might 
almost at any time be expressed in the following 
lines: 

" ' O Thou, who earnest from above, 

The pure celestial fire to impart, 
Kindle a flame of sacred love 

On the mean altar of my heart ! 



OLD AGE, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 3 1 5 

There let it for thy glory burn, 

With inextinguishable blaze ; 
And, trembling, to its source return, 

In humble love and fervent praise.' " 

Had he no faults ? Certainly he had ; for, 
great though he was, he was compassed about 
with the infirmities of the flesh. As you have 
seen, he sometimes erred in his judgments of men, 
and of women particularly. He was somewhat 
credulous, believed in ghosts and kindred super- 
natural phenomena — a weakness common to other 
great men of his times.* Possibly he erred in 
holding on so exclusively to the power of appoint- 
ing his preachers ; but of this I am not quite sure. 
Doubtless he believed that the best good of his 
societies required him to hold on ■ so tenaciously 
to his authority. Tyerman, his latest biographer, 

* We have not related the account of certain unexplained 
noises which occurred in the parsonage at Epworth, shortly 
after Wesley went to the Charter-house ; or given place to any 
of the numerous stories of the supernatural mentioned in his 
Journal, for the reason that the plan and scope of our work 
left us without space sufficient to discuss their character. 
We will only say here that, personally, we have no faith in 
the supernatural origin of the aforesaid noises. 



3l6 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

says he was "naturally irritable," and that, calling 
the attention* of one of his preachers to a dock, 
one day, he said : 

"Touch that!" 

" Do you feel any thing ?" he asked, after the 
preacher had obeyed him. 

"No replied the brother, divining what his 
chief was aiming at. 

" Touch that, then," said Wesley, pointing to a 
nettle. 

The brother did so, and was stung. 

" Now, Tommy," remarked Wesley, " some men 
are like docks, — say what you will to them, they are 
stupid and insensible. Others are like nettles, — 
touch them, and they resent it. Tommy, you are 
a nettle ; and, for my part, I would rather have to 
do with a nettle than a dock." 

If, by this stinging " object-lesson," Wesley in- 
tended a confession of his own natural nettlesome- 
ness, his record makes it pretty certain that Divine 
grace enabled him so to control it, that it stung 
none but the willful and the persistent wrong-doer. 

If he had other faults, they were venial — the 



OLD AGE, DEATH, AND CHARACTER. 317 

excess of his many virtues, and not the offspring 
of a perverted will. As you have seen, he had a 
few weaknesses ; but, put faults and weaknesses 
together, they were but as a few small, unseemly 
objects on a landscape otherwise so lovely that the 
beholder, enraptured with its manifold beauties, 
fails to take serious note of such trifling defects. 

Wesley's preaching was not equal to White- 
field's in eloquence ; but in matter, and especially 
in power over the conscience, it excelled it. His 
voice, though not loud, was clear, and had great 
compass. It reached to the farthest limit of the 
vast crowds he so often addressed in the open air. 
His manner in the pulpit was strikingly graceful, 
dignified, and attractive. His style was concise 
and plain. His thoughts were clear as crystal. 
His themes varied with his audiences. Upon the 
rich and gay he often poured down the claims of 
the law, like the fiery rain of Sodom. In the ears 
of the poor and miserable, his flute-like tones gave 
utterance to the sweet and pitiful words of the lov- 
ing Redeemer. At nearly all times he preached 
with an unction and power which proved* that 



3l8 A WONDERFUL LIFE. 

he constantly enjoyed the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost. 

But we must drop the pen. The English 
Church, which once drove him from her pulpits, 
has recently done tardy justice to his memory, by 
providing a place for his and his brother's monu- 
ments in Westminster Abbey, among the noblest 
of Britain's dead. But his best monument is 
Methodism. His highest honor is the fact that 
millions of souls, all over the earth, are daily ben- 
efited by the influences which he set in motion ; 
and other millions will be, to the end of time. 
May the reader emulate his virtues ! His great- 
ness is unattainable by ordinary mortals ; but 
that absolute self-devotion to God and to works 
of charity which distinguished him, is placed, by 
Divine grace, within reach of all. May the reader 
seek it with Wesley's pertinacity, and, having 
gained it, may he retain it with true Wesleyan 
tenacity ! 



H115 89 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 212 863 6 



